The Long Summer
by maleshka
Summary: Kelly Severide's life is falling apart - with his father out of the picture and his mother in the hospital, he'll need his friends, Andy Darden, Scott Rice and April Sexton, as well as Lieutenant Boden, to help pull him through the darker days of his long summer.
1. Chapter 1

_**I've only relatively recently found**_ **'Chicago Fire'** _ **and Kelly Severide quickly became one of my favourite characters – what can I say, I like the troubled, broody ones ; p The more I watched, the more apparent it became that Severide has been through some pretty bad things in his childhood, and with the**_ **CF** _ **characters of Severide, Darden, Rice and Sexton all linked through a shared high-school experience, the possibilities for a fic seemed endless.**_

 _ **This story takes place during the events that lead up to Kelly staying with April and her family, as mentioned in season three.**_

* * *

"Hey, you're back!" Scott Rice exclaimed loudly as he wandered towards the hunched figure of his friend, Kelly Severide, who was staring listlessly into his locker. "Woah, man, you look like shit!"

"Thanks," Kelly replied dryly, still looking in his locker as he tried to muster up enough energy to move.

"What happened?" Scott pushed, all too aware of his friend's stoic façade when it came to any and all things even remotely personal.

"Nothing," Severide predictably brushed off his concern.

"Nothing? I mean I know we're about to start the summer holidays and everything, but we're not there _yet,_ man, yet you've been gone from classes for almost a week - no one's heard from you and the teachers seem totally fine with you playing truant all this time, even Rodgers, and that guy seriously hates your guts, so clearly _something_ is up," Scott explained, his naturally verbose spirit going into overdrive with mounting concern for his friend. "Then you come back looking like… _this_. Do you really expect us to believe that _'nothing'_ happened?"

"Yeah, Sev," Andrew Darden said quietly, gently resting a supportive hand on his friend's shoulder, wondering at the way Kelly flinched at the contact. "No one was at your house, no one was answering the phone, no one was telling us _anything_ …we've been really worried."

"We?" Kelly asked wearily, finally pushing himself away from his locker as he turned to meet his friends' gaze.

"We," April Sexton stated firmly as she joined the group, desperately trying to remain unaffected by her friend's appearance. She only knew Andy and Scott through Kelly, but she knew enough to know that they were good friends – Andy had even come to her when Kelly was MIA and she had appreciated the heads-up. She'd missed her classmate during his unexplained absence and seeing his haggard appearance and the fading bruises only increased her concern.

"Well, I don't imagine it will be too long before the rumour mill lets everyone know _exactly_ what's been going on…" Kelly bitterly replied.

"I don't give a damn about the rumour mill," Andy interjected. "We're friends, we've known each other since kindergarten, and I swear to God if anyone messes with you then they're going to have to go through me first!"

" _Us_ ," Scott amended firmly.

"But we can only help you if we know what's going on - you _can_ trust us, Sev!" Andy implored his oldest friend.

Kelly nodded, already aware of the truth behind that statement. He and Andy had been through a lot together and they had always maintained a good and strong friendship through it all, Scott could be a bit of a joker at times and somewhat overenthusiastic with his stories, but he was a damn loyal friend, and April, while someone that he hadn't known as long or as well as the other two, had already proven herself to be entirely trustworthy and dependable, if a little too serious on occasion.

"Well…you guys know that my mom has been a bit…unwell," Kelly started tentatively, trying to find the right words.

"Yeah," Andy agreed quickly – having seen one too many of Mrs Severide's episodes for himself, he thought _'unwell'_ was a woefully inadequate description but he knew how much his friend struggled with the reality of his family situation, and was determined not to rock the boat with a more apt adjective.

"She, er…last weekend she had a full-on breakdown, went totally postal. When the dust had settled and she was more…lucid, I guess," Kelly shrugged, struggling to explain, "She, er…she checked herself into the psychiatric wing at UIC – they assessed her and found that…they think she's a danger to herself and to others, so they're keeping her in for a while…to monitor her, get her started on some intensive therapy, maybe some meds."

"If that happened last weekend, where were you for the rest of the time?" April asked gently, caring less about what was going on with Kelly's mother than she did about what had happened to her friend.

She looked him over again, taking stock of his appearance – it had only been a week, but Kelly looked as though he had lost a lot of weight in that short amount of time. There were bruises fading along his left cheek under the remains of a black eye, purple giving way to green and yellow tinges that indicated the gradual healing that only came with the passage of time, hinting that perhaps the danger Mrs Severide posed to others started first and foremost with her own son. The bags under his eyes spoke of more than one sleepless night and the pain she saw in them was clearly related to more than just his physical well-being.

"DCFS mainly," Kelly shrugged again, trying to pretend he was indifferent to the events of the last week, although why he even bothered to try he couldn't say – his three friends knew him too well to take his bullshit at face-value.

"DCFS?" Andy queried.

"The Department for Children and…"

"I know what it _means_ , April," Andy interrupted. "I just don't know why the hell they're getting involved."

"Because I'm a minor," Kelly explained.

"What about your dad?" Scott asked tentatively – they all knew that Benny Severide was more than just a sensitive topic for their friend.

"What about him?" Kelly spat out bitterly, slamming his locker shut. "The old man can do whatever the hell he wants, just so long as he stays away from me, and stays the hell away from my mom."

The other three exchanged silent, knowing glances – it seemed as though dear old Benny had once again well and truly failed in the father-of-the-year department. While they didn't know the details, nor did they particularly want to ask Kelly given his current mood, they could hazard a guess at what had happened – at a time when Kelly had needed his father the most during the events surrounding his mother the previous weekend, Benny Severide had yet again been nowhere to be found.

"Kelly," April interjected quietly as she rested her hand gently on his chest in an effort to stop him from walking away.

"What?" he asked, exhaustion seeping from every pore.

"Talk to us," she implored. " _Please_!"

"Honestly, April, we've got one week left until summer break and I just want to get through it with my sanity intact," Kelly replied quietly, a pleading tone to his words begging her to drop the subject.

"You got it," April agreed reluctantly. Kelly nodded his thanks and started to wander down the hallway, people happily shouting out greetings to him as he passed, glad to see he had returned and seemingly oblivious to his inner turmoil. April watched him leave, sadly wondering if he would ever let anyone truly help him through the darker times.

Kelly Severide was well-liked in school – his athleticism served him well with the sports teams and his dark, brooding good looks made most girls weak at the knees at the mere mention of his name. He didn't care about cliques and happily traversed the social lines drawn up in every high school, earning him friends in every group, his easy-going manner and natural charisma drawing people in like moths to a flame.

While April knew that her friend was aware of his popularity, she also knew that he didn't give a damn about it – Kelly Severide had _never_ gone out of his way to make people like him, seeing little need in catering to other people's expectations. Rumours regarding him frequently found their way weaving through the entire school, but Kelly never sought to correct any of them, even the most absurd or the highly insulting ones, seeing no need to justify himself to anyone no matter the circumstances, his casual indifference making him seem that bit cooler than those who relied upon the whims of high-school drama to boost their standing.

However, the moment those rumours involved his friends and those he cared about, Kelly Severide turned very protective, very quickly, and more importantly, he became very reactive.

Once, a member of the basketball team had tried to kiss her at an after-game party, and she had refused, kneeing him in the balls when he started getting physical and wandering hands found themselves grabbing at all the wrong places. School the next day saw vicious rumours flying around that she was a lesbian with all sorts of weird kinks – strange looks and loud whispers followed her through the halls, and her locker had playboy pictures posted through the slots by the dozen. Her reluctance to date in high school, choosing instead to focus on her studies and work towards getting an academic scholarship for medical school, was explained away by Dwayne Addams in explicit detail as a lesbian whore who simply couldn't get her fill of kinks amongst her peers.

As soon as Kelly had heard the rumours he'd gone looking for his friend, eventually finding her in tears at the back of the library – he'd comforted her with compassion and understanding before carefully and skilfully getting the whole story out of her about Dwayne and the after-party. To say he got angry on her behalf would be an understatement to the nth degree.

He'd told her that he would make sure Dwayne didn't bother her again, kissed her gently on the forehead and sent her off to the bathroom with one of her other friends who had been standing awkwardly in the background while Kelly worked his magic. Her trip to the bathroom allowed her a little time to pull herself back together before she was forced to face the school crowd once again, and when she finally felt ready to leave the sanctuary of the bathroom, the corridors were in chaos – everyone was talking about Dwayne and Kelly and the massive fight they'd had outside the cafeteria before the teachers had broken it up.

April had rushed to the principal's office, desperate to do what she could to help her friend, thinking that if she explained the circumstances (because she knew Kelly sure as hell wouldn't) then maybe the principal would let it slide. She had dreaded it, already imagining the next set of rumours to make the rounds – ' _April the grass_ ', ' _April the tease_ ', ' _April the whore_ ' – she knew how these things worked in high-school.

But when she got there, Dwayne was already gone and Kelly was leaving the office, backpack in hand with the principal looking on shaking his head disappointedly. She'd opened her mouth to speak only to have Kelly shake his head, not wanting to drag her into trouble that he had caused, that he had willingly walked into to get back at the arsehole that had hurt his friend.

" _Totally worth it," he'd said quietly, smiling crookedly at her before kissing her on the forehead and pulling her in for a hug._

" _Kelly…" she'd tried to respond, even as she lost herself in the comfort of his arms._

" _Andy and Scott will keep an eye on things for me while I'm out – if Dwayne or anyone else gives you any problems,_ any at all _, then you go to them, promise?" he'd asked earnestly, pulling away a little and lifting her chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes._

" _I promise," she'd agreed, tears flowing down her face as she struggled to find the right words to thank her friend for all that he had done for her, from comforting her, to confronting Dwayne, to keeping her part in it all away from the principal's office and therefore allowing her to escape another round of vicious rumours._

 _Kelly used his thumbs to gently wipe away the tears before kissing her once again on the forehead and silently gesturing towards Scott and Andy, who had been watching down the hall before heading towards them, Andy gently taking April into his arms as Kelly was marched off the premises by the principal._

He'd been suspended for one week, and by the time he returned to classes, the rumour mill regarding her had all but died down while Dwayne was still very much on the receiving end, as theories circulated regarding the reasons behind the fight.

That was Kelly – always so ready and willing to help out his friends no matter the cost, but someone who would not only avoid asking for help for any of his own problems, but would actively seek to hide any and all evidence of his distress whenever possible, often to his own detriment. April could only hope that this wasn't one of those times.

* * *

"Did you hear?" Andy asked April quietly as the school day drew to an end.

"Hear what?" April demanded, already expecting the worst given their mutual friend's volatile nature earlier in the day.

"Sev's been suspended," Andy sighed heavily.

"What?" April exclaimed. "Why?"

"Apparently he got into it with one of the teachers," Andy explained. "I don't know why or what he said, but apparently it got pretty heated and the principal decided to send him home."

"Home?" April said incredulously. "Right now, we don't even know where _'home'_ is for Kelly!"

"I _know_!" Andy replied angrily. He was beyond pissed at the entire situation and his feelings of utter helplessness were not making things any easier.

Andy had plenty of friends and was generally happy with his school life, but he was fully aware that he played second fiddle to Sev – he knew what people thought of him, that he was Kelly Severide's constant shadow, always following one step behind his friend, hanging onto his every word without any original thoughts or actions of his own. Once upon a time he had been upset by it all, but eventually it was Sev who helped him realise that it was all bullshit, that most people didn't have the first clue about their friendship and made shit up to feel better about their own problems.

They had grown up together, friends since kindergarten, and it made sense that they had similar hopes and dreams, having shared everything else. Kelly always insisted that one of the reasons he liked Andy so much was precisely because he _didn't_ follow his every word – Sev was self-aware enough to know that he had a tendency to go off at the deep end when his problems got the better of him, and he had always relied upon Andy to pull him back from the precipice, to call him out on his crap.

Andy had been there for him when his father had left, leaving nothing but heartache in a young Kelly's life, and Kelly had been there when Andy's own father had succumbed to his long-standing battle with cancer. Andy had been there when Mrs Severide started fading in and out of reality, forgetting simple things like what day it was, to the more extreme end of the spectrum where meals and sometimes even Kelly himself were overlooked.

Andy had been stuck on the side-lines, watching his friend struggle with the grim reality of his home life, with Sev never uttering a word of complaint, merely shrugging his shoulders and stating _'it could be worse'_ if ever anyone asked. He'd done what he could for Kelly, such as inviting him over for a meal with his own family and packing extra food in his lunch-bag just to be certain that his friend would at least have _something_ to eat that day.

Along with Scott, and lately with April, Andy did what he could to get Kelly out of the sombre atmosphere of his home during the long weekends, taking him to the park, to parties, to games, to the lake, anywhere and everywhere that was available to them. It helped somewhat – Sev's moods lately had seemed lighter, more relaxed.

But at the end of the day, the sixteen year-old simply couldn't afford to live as a normal teenager – Kelly took work wherever and whenever he could find it, doing what he could to keep a roof over their heads and food in the cupboards when his mother's mental fragility lost her yet another job and her wandering mind left things like bills and groceries in the dark.

Andy helped out when he could, and along with Severide he'd become pretty decent at home repairs and car maintenance in an effort to avoid wasting money on paying someone else, doing odd jobs around the house through necessity - it had been yet another thing to draw them closer to each other, to cement their friendship into something more than just another interwoven childhood backstory.

"Look, if we don't hear from him by tomorrow evening, then I'll ask Vince, my next-door neighbour," Andy said as he placed a gentle hand on April's shoulder in an effort to ease her very visible distress – normally Sexton was as cool as a cucumber, almost as stoic as Kelly, but Andy knew that her friendship with their troubled friend was one of the few she truly valued.

"Vince?" April wondered.

"He's a cop," Andy explained. "He works homicide, but with his connections maybe he'll be able to find something out for us."

"Can you ask him today?" April asked brokenly. "You saw the look in his eyes, too, Andy. Whatever happened, whatever he's just gone through, he _needs_ us…needs his friends to help him, whether he knows it or not, so the sooner we know where he is, the better."

"I'll see what I can do," Andy agreed.

"Any word?" Scott asked as he joined them.

"None," Andy shook his head in dismay. "Do you know what happened? I've heard all kinds of crap second hand, but you know how ridiculous the rumours get around here."

"It was right after third period, so everyone had left," Scott shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I was waiting for him outside…only went back in once the shouting started."

In truth, Scott had heard quite a few things tossed around the room before he had gathered up enough courage to interrupt his irate friend's tirade, and frankly he thought Miss Walker deserved more than a few swear words and a whole hell of a lot of insults thrown her way – from what Scott could tell, dear old Benny had hooked up with Miss Walker and Mrs Severide had walked in on it, probably prompting her latest tailspin out of reality. However, Kelly hadn't said a word about it before, and he had not uttered one syllable about it after, so Scott figured it wasn't really his place to tell anyone.

Kelly was a good friend, and Scott didn't want to lose that friendship by betraying his trust, no matter how honourable his intentions might be. Kelly had been there for him through the worst of days in the Rice household, when his father's drinking had spiralled out of control and taken a very real and very physical toll on everyone.

Once the shit had hit the fan and Scott's mother had kicked the violent drunk out, Severide had taken the time to help not just Scott, but his siblings too – he would go with Scott and take them to the park, letting the little ones run riot on the playground while letting Scott practically break down all over him. Kelly and Andy never complained when Scott would turn up at the cinema or the bowling alley with siblings in tow because his mother had pounced on the chance to pick up a second shift, they simply smiled and helped him keep them all in check, buying them sodas and letting them ramble on about their day.

As the oldest child of a broken home, Scott knew a little something about assuming a greater degree of responsibility than would normally be required from a teenager, but every time he saw the bags around his friends eyes grow that bit darker, his frame that bit thinner, Scott thanked God his own mother had got just downright angry at the situation rather than simply given up and checked out the way Kelly's mother had done.

"Andy's next-door neighbour might be able to help us track him down," April offered up quietly, her gaze fixed on a nothing spot in the distance as her mind wandered elsewhere.

"That's good," Scott nodded absentmindedly. He'd spent as much of the day as he could with Kelly, but his troubled friend had kept all of his problems internal until he blew up at Walker, then he had quickly been marched off to the principal's office by the gym teacher and no one had seen him since. With Kelly's living situation still unknown, Scott had no clue where to even start and the relief he felt at hearing someone might be able to help them was immeasurable.

"Come on, school's out and I don't know about you two, but I really need to get the hell out of here," Andy said, shaking his head with frustration. He didn't know what he could do to help his friend, but surely finding him was the first step. "Let's go back to mine and see if Vince is back home yet – hopefully he can help us track down where DCFS has dumped Sev."

"Then what…?" April asked, wondering what the hell they could really do to help their friend when he was mired by such circumstances.

"I don't know," Andy shrugged helplessly. "But I'm sure as hell not going to give up just yet."

"Come on," Scott said as he made his way towards the exit with speed. "Let's go and get our boy back."

* * *

 _ **Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think and if you spot any errors.**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Thanks for the reviews/messages/alerts.**_

 _ **This chapter explains a little about where Kelly is and how his friends are feeling.**_

* * *

Andy, April and Scott were all waiting impatiently at the Darden household. Andy's next-door neighbour had, upon seeing how distressed the teenagers were, agreed to see what he could find out about their missing friend, Kelly Severide.

Vincent "Vince" Torretti had been with CPD for almost three decades and over that time he had worked in several different departments and more than a couple of precincts – that had earned him a great many contacts throughout the city, ones he was now putting to good use while trying to track down a kid he'd only ever really met in passing.

He liked Andy – he was a good kid trying to do right by his family after losing his father to cancer some years before, always helping out around the house and tending gardens in the neighbourhood, or going further afield with one of his friends, working on boats or cars, or working weekend shifts at a record store in an effort to earn a little extra cash. The kid worked hard to help out his mother and make sure that his little sister wanted for nothing, and the old timer couldn't help but respect the hell out of Andy for it.

Over the years, Vince and his wife had shared more than a few cooked meals with their neighbours, and it hadn't taken many trips over to the Darden household before realising that Kelly Severide was very much the brother Andy had never had but always wanted. The two were thick as thieves, right from the get-go, finding fun and trouble together in equal measure and always there to bail the other one out.

Vince didn't know much about Kelly, but he _did_ know that when the Darden patriarch had been slowly wasting away, his painful, lingering death hanging over the family like a constant black cloud, the boy had never been far from his friend. Sometimes it was a simple matter of him visiting the house, sitting side-by-side as they lost themselves in a game or a movie, other times, he would drag a miserably depressed Andy and his little sister out to the park or off to the arcade, doing everything he could to distract them from the cruelties of reality waiting for them at home.

The old detective had never thought to inquire as to the state of Kelly's home life, as they rarely swapped more than a quick _'hello'_ or, more usually, a slight nod of the head. He certainly would never have guessed that the word _'home'_ for Kelly Severide came with the very loosest of definitions, his crackpot mother allowing him no real place of refuge there, ensuring he sought it out at the Darden residence or elsewhere.

Vince vaguely knew Benny Severide from back in the day, when they'd both started to make names for themselves in their respective careers – they'd shared a few beers but certainly never been friends. Benny's reputation as a fireman was outstanding, and the man had earned a lot of respect from just about every echelon of society in Chicago due to his professional capabilities – right now, however, Vince thought the guy deserved a swift, hard punch to the gut.

His own children had all but moved out, one to work in Seattle whilst his youngest was finishing up university in Florida with a job already lined up in Jacksonville. They'd had more than their fair share of arguments over the years, some more explosive than others, but the idea of not being there for them on the very worst of days was unfathomable, and he couldn't understand how any father could fail so spectacularly even as his very job reminded him that it was a far from infrequent occurrence.

However, Benny Severide was not even in a different _city_ from his child, and yet, with his mother in a closed psychiatric ward and no other family members to speak of, Kelly had been handed over to the state, left alone and lost in the system, miles from his home and his friends – with his father's tacit refusal to take him in, Kelly looked set to stay in foster care until his mother was deemed of sound mind, or, more likely, until he reached the age of eighteen. It was a spectacularly shitty situation!

"How much do you know about what happened?" the homicide detective asked, trying to gauge what they knew, and just what, exactly, he should tell them. He'd got the basics from Andy, but not much more, mainly because the kid didn't _know_ anything else.

"His mom," Scott sighed wearily. "She _really_ lost the plot _this_ time."

"He was covered in bruises," April quickly responded, and Vince heard the unasked question.

"Well, I'm sure you've likely already guessed that they were from his mother," he confirmed, receiving subdued nods from them all. "From what I gather he tried to grab her, stop her from hurting herself and destroying their home – understandably in her state of mind she didn't react well to that."

"But, Sev can take care of himself…I mean…" Andy started, trying to understand how his friend's delicate looking mother could inflict such damage on someone he all too frequently thought of as invincible, despite knowing the many problems that existed in Kelly's life.

"She's his mother, Andy," Vince shook his head sadly. "At the end of the day, no matter what, that clearly counts for something with the kid."

"He would never risk hurting her," April stated quietly but firmly. She knew that Kelly, for all of his gruff, surly mannerisms, was a gentle soul at heart with an incredible capacity to empathise – his temper could be flared with sometimes violent results, but never towards someone so wholly vulnerable as his mother would have been in that moment.

She'd been on the receiving end of one too many of his efforts to appease her to ever think that he would have tried to hurt his mother, even in self-defence – when she'd been sad or scared or just downright furious, he would take everything April could throw at him, from tears as she cried on his shoulder, to bruises as she uselessly beat her fists against his chest, or verbal lacerations as she viciously cursed his name, and he was still nothing but gentle.

"Look," Vince sighed. "I don't have the doctor's report, but what I _do_ know is that first night the medics took him to the ER and he stayed overnight for observation – not much more than that was contained in the police report. Mrs Severide had already been given her initial assessment and she'd agreed to sign herself into UIC voluntarily, so by the time he was discharged it was a simple matter of finding someone to act _in loco parentis_."

"And, of course, Benny Severide stepped up to the plate," Scott remarked bitterly. He was so pissed at the man and he barely even _knew_ the guy, but to leave his friend hanging like that…well, if he saw Benny's face in the near future he was sure as hell going to try his hardest to rearrange it!

Vince heard the sour tone in Rice's voice and assumed that Benny's parenting skills, or lack thereof, were nothing new, and unfortunately, it looked like Kelly was going to suffer more for it in the weeks to come.

"As things stand now, Mrs Severide is on the psych ward at UIC for an indefinite period of time," Vince started only to be interrupted.

"What the hell does _that_ mean?" Andy demanded, his frustration ripping any and all good manners from him.

"I'm getting to that," the cop replied shortly. "She will be an inpatient until such a time as she can be declared healthy, psychologically speaking – when she is no longer a threat to herself, to her son, or to anyone else, _then_ she'll be released."

"Will she get Kelly back then?" April asked with growing trepidation. What is DCFS thought Mrs Severide incapable of looking after her son? Would he be doomed to spend the next couple of years in foster care before being cast adrift in the wider world?

"I don't know, kid," Vince shook his head sadly. "That's a question for DCFS. But if the hospital declares her capable then I don't see why not."

"How long is she going to be there?" Scott wondered.

"There's no hard and fast rule for these things – chances are the hospital staff will very much play it by ear but I don't imagine we'll get a preliminary release date just yet."

"God, this is fucked up!" Andy exclaimed loudly as he threw his hands up in the air and started to pace, desperately trying to burn of some of his restless energy.

Vince lifted an eyebrow at the language, unused to hearing profanity from the usually calm kid next door, but he let it slide – given everything that had happened, one swearword was pretty modest.

"Come on, man," Scott said as he approached his friend and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder only to have it roughly shaken off.

"Andy?" April asked quietly, her voice quivering with emotion. She was not normally so easily affected, but her own sense of helplessness and her anger at the situation Kelly had found himself stuck in were exacerbating just about every passing sentiment.

Andy paused and turned to look at his friends. April was silently imploring him to calm down and hold his shit together, her eyes glistening with unshed tears hinting that she was one more outburst away from losing it herself. Scott was stood rigidly straight, staring at an indeterminate spot by his feet, the only movement the slow clenching and unclenching of his fists as he tried to control his own feelings.

Normally, Kelly was the glue that held their little group together, his ability to read between the lines often giving him the first hint that not all was well, and so he would help keep the peace where relevant, offer a shoulder of support when needed or just take them away from it all with a spontaneous trip to the lake or into the city to have some fun and unwind.

When his father had passed away, and his little sister, barely old enough to truly comprehend exactly what had happened, hung like a limpet to their mother's side while she sorted out funeral arrangements with their aunt and uncle, and a thirteen year-old Andy was _one_ more platitude away from punching someone, Kelly had shown up on his doorstep wearing a backpack, with a cooler in one hand and a tent in the other.

" _Come on, man," Severide said in lieu of an actual greeting as he walked through the front door and headed towards the stairs, dropping his things off by the door as he went. "Scott's mom has a couple of days free and she agreed to take us up to Illinois Beach - her shift should be over any moment now and we've got less than an hour to get you packed before they're due here to pick us up."_

" _What?" Andy had asked blankly, his mind numb with grief and struggling to follow even the most basic of conversations let alone the unexpected ones._

" _You need to pack," Kelly explained before grabbing his friend by the arm and giving him a gentle push towards the stairs._

" _Pack? But, I_ can't _…my mom…" Andy started._

" _Already sorted," Kelly informed him. "She said you needed to get out of here for a while, so we're going to spend a couple of days by the lake and mess about on the water and go biking through the woods…whatever we want. But we need to_ hurry _!"_

" _And she's letting us go by ourselves?" Andy asked incredulously. He had a relatively large amount of freedom when wandering around his own neighbourhood, but his mother's lax attitude quickly disappeared the moment he stepped outside their local area – he didn't think she'd agree to an unsupervised trip to Illinois Beach State Park._

" _Of course not," Kelly shook his head. "Like I said, Scott's family is going to come with us."_

" _Really?" Andy wondered – things had been tense at the Rice household since Scott's father had lost his job, and instead of going out to look for more work, Mr Rice spent all day drinking at home. Andy, like Kelly, was worried for their friend – it had only been a week since Scott had had the cast from his arm removed after_ 'falling down the stairs' _one night._

" _Money's tight for them at the moment, and a few days camping is a pretty cheap way to get three kids out of the house," Kelly informed his friend. "Besides, I think they need to get out of the house for a couple of days even more than_ you _do."_

" _Are_ all _of them coming?" Andy asked somewhat nervously as he thought of the imposing figure of Scott's father._

" _He's staying at home," Kelly replied, perceptive enough to know what, or rather_ who _Andy was really asking about. "Mrs Rice will have Anna and Joshua and look out for them," Kelly said of Scott's younger siblings, "And we'll have a tent of our own and can go off by ourselves."_

" _I don't know, man," Andy hesitated. "My mom…I don't know that she'd like it."_

" _Your mom's cool with it and she trusts us to stay out of trouble for a couple of days in a park – it's not like we're going camping in_ Englewood _!"_

" _Andy," his mother said as she came into the hallway and took in his hesitant hovering on the bottom step with a degree of sadness. "Go with your friends, sweetheart. I know you feel like you should be here to take care of things but really, there's nothing you can do at the moment. There are so many things I need to sort out: there's my time off work, the funeral, life insurance, the hospital – so many…_ too _many things to think about, but your aunt and uncle are going to help me."_

" _Mom, I can't just_ leave _you here!"_

" _Baby," his mother said as she walked up to him and gently cupped his cheeks. "Honestly, I think the best thing you can do for me right now is to do the best thing for you, and that means taking care of yourself and being with your friends. Your sister is going to stay with her friend Michelle across the street for a couple of days – she doesn't really understand what's happening right now but she can tell everyone is upset and I really think she needs to get out of the house." She could tell that he remained unconvinced, "Give me a couple of days to get through all this paperwork without worrying about you and your sister, please?"_

" _Sure, mom," Andy had replied, choking up with emotion._

" _You look after my boy, Kelly," Mrs Darden said, kissing the teenager on the cheek as she headed back downstairs._

" _Always," Kelly promised before following his friend up to his bedroom. Andy hastily began stuffing vast amounts of clothing into a bag. "It's a couple of days in a tent, Andy, we're not going off on a round the world vacation," he joked in an effort to get his friend to relax._

 _Andy sighed heavily before throwing the bag across the room and sitting down on the edge of his bed where he promptly burst into tears. Kelly quietly sat next to him before placing a gentle arm around his shoulders and pulling him close, letting Andy sob his heart out, and Sev never said a word, just let him cry until the tears ran out._

 _Eventually, feeling somewhat embarrassed by his breakdown, Andy shuffled off to the bathroom to clean up and try to hide away the evidence of his distress. When he returned to his room almost ten minutes later, wash things in hand ready to be packed, he found that Kelly had picked up the bag and re-packed it with everything he might need._

" _Thanks, Sev," Andy said quietly but earnestly._

" _Any time, man," Kelly nodded, offering his friend a small smile._

And that was Kelly – he could be so infuriatingly stoic and stubbornly silent in the face of his own problems, but he went to the ends of the earth for his friends with not a hint of hesitation on his part, always seemingly able to figure out just what was needed to help out.

It had been a good few days by the lake – the three of them managed to spend most of their time alone doing their own thing, and forgetting about the troubles that awaited them back in the city. When he returned home, Andy felt lighter than he had done before and while he was still devastated by the loss of his father, he felt stronger and better prepared to face the funeral. Both Kelly and Scott had been there, too, quietly standing by his side when he wanted them there and backing off when it all got too much and he needed some time alone.

Now, when Kelly needed a friend the most, they didn't know where he was or what they could do – Andy wouldn't know what to say to his friend, even if he was stood right in front of him.

"So do you know where he is?" April asked, getting to the question they wanted to be answered above all others.

"I do," Vince sighed. Kelly had been living in a group home in Logan Square for almost a week and by all accounts, the kid was furious about it.

* * *

Kelly Severide was anything but happy. The group home they had dumped him in was even more cramped than the tiny apartment he shared with his mother and the staff there varied from overly sympathetic to out-and-out bastards.

His first night there had been a predictably unhappy experience – fresh out of the hospital, still aching all over and beyond exhausted, Kelly had been shown to a small bedroom with two sets of bunkbeds pushed up against opposite walls, barely a shoulder's width gap between them. The only available beds were on the top bunks, and given that his broad frame had gained a reasonable amount of extra height due to his latest growth spurt, he was more than a little dubious about the flimsy-looking bed's ability to hold his weight.

Nonetheless, he was about to test the bed, desperate for some sleep, when his case-worker only allowed him the time to drop off his bag before taking him to a small office when a senior member of staff for the home talked him through the rules and explained what was expected of him.

Some of the things he could have guessed – no alcohol, sex or drugs was an expected demand, but going to see a psychiatrist? Hell no! He'd quickly made his feelings on the matter known only for them to tell him he had no choice. After enduring a good twenty minute lecture about the benefits of therapy, Kelly sat looking mutinous but decided he would keep his feelings to himself – they might be able to make him go, but they sure as hell couldn't make him talk.

Eventually, the welcoming speech was over and Kelly wanted to retire to his bed only to find out that it was not allowed – apparently _'The Schedule'_ was sacrosanct and no violations would be tolerated, and _'The Schedule'_ demanded a shared evening meal. Barely able to keep from face-planting in his somewhat suspect macaroni and cheese, his resentment for the group home only intensified as he was expected to wait until everyone had finished and cleaned up before being granted the chance to leave.

Over what was left of the weekend, he found himself chaffing at the restrictions imposed upon him by the staff. Anytime he wanted something from the fridge, he needed to seek permission first, anytime he wanted to watch TV or read a book or take a shower, he needed to ask first. When he needed some fresh air, he went out into the backyard to find a concrete mess of tired garden furniture and wire-mesh fencing with loose bits of barbed-wire – the overall appearance was one of a prison yard and that was exactly what it felt like when he was told that he wasn't allowed outside without permission. He was sixteen, for Christ's sake!

There were four other kids in the home and they all varied in ages and character. The youngest, Manuel, was eleven – apparently the carers didn't like to have such big age gaps in roommates, but space was at a premium in Chicago's group homes and such disparities were quite common.

Manuel occupied the bed underneath his – he kept hanging spare sheets around it to act as curtains, blocking out everyone and everything as he hid away, but the staff were continually removing them. Manuel shied away from any and all physical contact, barely said a word and had yet to look him in the eyes and Kelly hated to think what he must have endured to be so untrusting of physical contact at eleven.

The other bunkbed in his room only had one occupant – Darnell was sixteen years old and originally from Roseland. His father had long since disappeared, and with his mother spiralling into a nasty heroin addiction, Darnell had turned to the gang scene – he was smart as hell, but so far beyond apathetic that he saw no point in directing his intellect towards something more worthwhile. His case-worker had moved him to the other side of the city, apparently hoping that the physical distance would help remove Darnell from all aspects of gang life. Kelly knew for a fact that he was still in touch with his boys back home because he had a stolen mobile phone he used to talk to them at night.

On the whole, he and Darnell steered clear of each other and had only had one minor confrontation about what to watch on TV. With his avoidance and Manuel's near mute status, Kelly at least had a little peace and quiet in his room and that was certainly hard to come by with the other two.

Sharing the other room was a seventeen year old and an eighteen year old. Troy was eighteen and after a lifetime in foster care, he was simply biding his time, waiting for school to end so he could graduate and get the hell out of the foster care system. He already had a part-time job at a local garage and a solid group of friends from school, and with only a matter of weeks to go until his graduation he was pushing each and every boundary, caring less and less about the rules and any potential consequences.

His roommate was a very studious kid named Krzysztof. His parents were Polish but had moved to the US for work. However, his mother had died in childbirth and his father had been left to raise Krzysztof and a new-born baby boy all by himself - things had been fine until the father caught a stray bullet in a drive-by. So at the ages of seven and three, the brothers had been put into the system – his little brother had been adopted almost immediately, and while he had been in and out of foster homes, Krzysztof always ended up being sent back to the group home.

Having suffered through one too many bad placements before, he preferred being at the group home – life might be more restrictive, but he knew exactly what he could and couldn't get away with and he didn't mind the staff. He was soft-spoken and unfailingly polite, and as he spent most of his time doing his homework or reading a book, he had quickly become a firm favourite of the carers.

Unfortunately for everyone else, the same could not be said for Troy and the two roommates were like oil and water.

Every morning started with one of the two arguing over something – be it time spent in the shower to using the last of the milk, there was always something that they had to fight about. Kelly's cereal had been collateral damage and ended up on the floor more than once when those two had decided to go at it. Some of the carers flat out ignored it and a couple of them did everything they could to keep the peace and those two apart, issuing them both a _'conflict resolution'_ lecture before separating them in opposite corners of the house until they'd both had a chance to cool down. Unfortunately, there were a couple of carers who had an entirely different approach.

The staff was on a constant rotation, and the atmosphere in the house was entirely dependent upon who was working that day. For the most part, they were a pretty apathetic bunch, long since inured to the depressing backstories of the youths in their care and more than used to dealing with unruly teenagers on a daily basis so that next to nothing shocked them anymore.

There were one or two who tried to be more involved – they were usually the young ones fresh out of college who still dreamed about making a difference, ones who had not yet been weighed down by the bureaucratic nightmare that was ninety percent of the job and the too-frequent tragedies that constituted the other ten. Kelly had found that they tended to be overly solicitous, trying to get the boys to open up while at the same time acting as though they were best friends and not adults acting _in loco parentis_.

However, their well-meaning intrusions and New-Age hippy bullshit were infinitely more desirable than being left with the bullies. There were a couple of carers who did anything _but_ care, and at the first sign of trouble they became more than a little heavy-handed. God knows that Kelly had wanted to punch both Troy and Krzysztof at one time or another during their frequent bouts, but he had managed to rein himself in – apparently the carers felt no such compunctions and were responsible for more than a few bruises. But they didn't just leave it at a little physical violence every now and then, either.

The two problematic members of staff seemed to take great pleasure in verbally assaulting them too. Kelly suspected it was so that they would get a reaction and be justified in using physical force – he'd already received more than a few choice comments made about his mother, but he was determined to keep his head down, desperate not to rock the boat so that if…no, _when_ his mother was released there would be no obstacles to him returning home with her.

Krzysztof would bury himself in his books if ever they directed their attention his way, keeping quiet and doing his best to avoid them. Troy had long since learnt the repercussions to reacting to their vitriolic diatribe and knew enough to just flat out ignore them, although Kelly could see that as his placement at the home was nearing its end, he was becoming less and less concerned with the consequences of fighting back – the carers clearly sensed it too, as they seemed to be more and more put out by his height and _don't-mess-with-me_ attitude.

On the whole, though, the two bullying carers went after easier targets. Darnell was generally pretty easy-going unless you got in his face, and then his reactions tended to be explosive, prompting the carers to react violently. Manuel was the youngest in the home, and by far the most vulnerable. Whatever he had endured in his young life had clearly pushed him to the brink – he shied away from any and all physical contact and jumped at loud noises. He avoided eye contact as much as he could and rarely said anything above a whisper when he spoke at all. The poor boy couldn't even find any peace in his sleep, as he often woke up quietly sobbing from the latest nightmares - Kelly hated to think of what he must have been through if, even half-awake and disturbed by his dreams, he did his best to remain as near to silent as possible.

The two problem carers, Anderson and Jenkins, seemed to take great pleasure in eliciting panic attacks and terrorising the poor kid, knowing full well that he lacked the strength, physically and emotionally, to fight back. Krzysztof would ignore it all while Darnell would occasionally draw their fire, hurling insults at them and provoking a reaction of his own, and Troy would sometimes take Manuel and watch TV with him, creating a physical barrier between the small boy and his would-be tormentors.

Sometimes, however, they were not around and Kelly found that even with his most fervent desire to avoid rocking the boat and causing problems down the line, he could not leave the kid to fend for himself. That was how he found himself in his current predicament – locked in the laundry room with a split lip, a fresh black eye and a couple of busted ribs. He really needed to get out, back to his own neighbourhood and to friends who would watch his back – more than anything, he just wanted to go home.

* * *

 _ **Please let me know what you think and if you spot any mistakes – thanks!**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Happy New Year! Hope you all had a lovely time over the holidays. Sorry this is a little late - with Christmas, the family, the farm and the floods, time has been a little short.**_ _ **Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review/message - your support is much appreciated.**_

 _ **This chapter sees the effects of Kelly's situation on his friend, Andy, and also sees that situation taking another dire turn, showing just how vulnerable a young Kelly is at the moment - poor guy is**_ **not** _ **having an easy time of it!**_

* * *

Vince knew not to take the unassuming building at face value – his long career on the force had taught him that things were rarely as they seemed. The group home looked like every other house on the block – detached with what could have been a decent yard had anyone taken the time to tend to it. The whole neighbourhood looked tired and neglected and the homicide detective could already feel his spirits sinking.

However, he'd promised Andy and his friends that he'd check in on their friend before telling them where to find Kelly, wanting to properly assess the situation and avoid any unpleasant fallout – he didn't really have any right to be getting involved in the case, after all, and he certainly didn't want to send three upset kids into an unknown part of the city and upsetting the applecart.

He liked the Darden's and sympathised with Andy and his friends, all of whom were upset with Kelly's situation, but, never able to withstand a woman in tears it had been Mrs Darden's chocked up plea of _'please…_ please _check up on my boy'_ that finally had Vince agreeing to go beyond the confines of his usual remit and chase down the missing teen to the run-down neighbourhood in Logan Square.

A short, sharp knock on the door brought one of the carers to the threshold – the man looked to be in his late twenties and the suspicious, assessing gaze worked its way over Vince before checking to see that the man was on his own.

"Who are you and what the hell do you want?" he asked shortly.

"I'm Detective Torretti," Vince replied, automatically pulling himself up to his full and somewhat imposing height as every sense he possessed screamed out to him about the man in front of him. "I'm here to speak to Kelly Severide."

The man's eyes widened briefly at the revelation, but he quickly stamped down his emotions and offered the cop an insincere grin and a hand. "Robert Jenkins," he introduced himself while quickly trying to come up with a plausible story. "I'm afraid Kelly isn't in at the moment – he went out with some friends from back home and we thought it might do him some good, so we gave him permission to stay out a little later than his usual curfew."

"I see," Vince said, narrowing his eyes at the man in front of him – Jenkins had picked the wrong man to spew that particular pack of lies to. Any cop who didn't know the kid might have taken the lie at face-value – while he didn't know Kelly anywhere nearly as well as he did Andy, he still knew the kid. Vince knew that Kelly was popular enough at school, but he only had a small, select group of friends that he fully trusted – the only people Kelly Severide would want to see right now were the ones the cop had left behind in the oppressively quiet Darden household kitchen.

"Yeah, sorry you had a wasted trip, man," Jenkins offered another insincere grin and a token shrug of his shoulders.

"No problem," Vince shook his head. "I'll be back tomorrow," he promised. "If I were you I'd make sure he's in."

"Well I won't be on then, but I'll make sure that the next carers on shift know to keep him around," Jenkins promised as he silently thought about the best way to explain the fresh bruises on his latest charge, bruises he had put there not even two hours ago.

Vince left, the sinking feeling he'd felt on entering the neighbourhood turning leaden. Jenkins had set his teeth on edge from the get-go – from his insincere manner to his likely deceit and purposefully vague information, Jenkins had presented the experienced cop with a façade that screamed _'warning'_.

Unfortunately, despite the churning in his gut, Jenkins had given him no cause to enter the house, and given that he shouldn't even be getting involved in the case in the first place Vince knew he had to tread carefully. However, he had no intention of ignoring his gut and leaving Kelly in a potentially dangerous situation, so he flipped open his mobile and started making a few calls as he walked back to his car, first and foremost checking up on one Robert Jenkins.

* * *

"So you just left?" Andy demanded incredulously. Night had fallen and April and Scott had long since left, acquiescing only on the promise that he would call them with news as soon as Vince returned. However, he still subconsciously looked for them and their support at the news but found only his mother frowning at him for his outburst.

"Andy," his mother quietly warned him, not liking the disrespectful tone to her son's voice at all.

"I didn't have a lot of options," the detective explained. "The carer said he was out with friends…"

"He doesn't _have_ any friends in Logan Square!" Andy interrupted loudly. "And the only kids in school who even know what the hell _happened_ to Sev are me, Scott and April."

"Yeah, I'd already thought that it was pretty unlikely," Vince said patiently. He understood the kid's concern but there was nothing to be done for now.

"But you believed it enough not to question it? You know what, if you're not going to help him then _we'll_ go!"

"If you think I'm going to let you walk into an unknown situation, a possibly _dangerous_ situation, then you've got another thing coming!" Vince said sharply, hoping to get his point across – one kid in trouble was bad enough, he didn't need four of them.

"But Sev…"

"You came to me and asked for my help – believe it or not, I _am_ helping," the cop promised Andy. "But you need to trust me, trust that I know what I'm talking about, trust that I know what I'm doing and trust that what I _am_ doing is the best thing for your friend!"

"We do believe that," Andy's mother interjected. She knew her son was upset at being unable to help his friend, and she understood that not knowing if Kelly was even ok would eat at him until he had some answers, but Vince had been a good neighbour and friend to the family and she didn't want to upset him. "Thank you, Vince, we appreciate everything you're doing to help Kelly."

"I've made some more calls," the cop informed them. "I have people looking into the carers at the home, trying to see if there is anything suspicious to explain why this Jenkins may have lied to me. But you also need to be prepared for the possibility that it was _Kelly_ who lied to _him_ in an effort to get out of a situation he clearly wanted nothing to do with in the first place by all accounts."

"He wouldn't do that," Andy said firmly. Kelly could lie when he needed to, but most of the time his friend had no qualms about being entirely too honest, sometimes to his own detriment – blunt to the point of rudeness at times, Kelly Severide knew how to get his view across and it was rarely through deception. In fact, the only time Kelly tended to lie was by omission in relation to questions about his own wellbeing in an effort to keep people at arm's length, never one to let others help him out and share the load – _'a problem shared is a problem halved'_ was very definitely _not_ a saying that Sev put any stock in. No, if Kelly had wanted out of the group home, even for a couple of hours, he would have said so and walked out anyway, damn the consequences.

"I'll be back out there tomorrow morning, kid," Vince promised. "And I swear, if there is even the slightest _hint_ that something isn't right then I will do everything in my power to get Kelly moved elsewhere, but beyond that…my options are limited."

"His own damn father could have helped out there!" Andy spat viciously, never having hated the man more than in that moment. There were many times that he had disliked Benny Severide, even after spending a large part of his early childhood idolising the man and his profession – it was hard to think well of the man when he saw the very visible effects of the man's indifference to his own son. But this was beyond unforgivable and he would never again look at the man with any degree of respect in his eyes, screw what the city officials thought about the man's stellar record!

"I'll let you know how I get on," Vince promised them both, before making a hasty retreat, desperate to get away from the oppressive atmosphere of the house and the accusing looks from Andy as the possibilities of Kelly's current reality whirled around everyone's minds.

"Couldn't he come and live here?" Andy asked quietly once Vince had gone and he'd got his temper back under control.

"Oh sweetheart," his mother said as she sadly shook her head. "You know I would take him in in a heartbeat if I could – I've come to care about Kelly as a second son, but we simply can't afford it."

"He already practically spends more time here than he does at home anyway," Andy argued.

"He comes over a lot, that's true," Elizabeth Darden agreed. "But he doesn't _live_ here, Andy. I'm working two jobs already and we're _still_ struggling with the bills and the mortgage repayments, never mind the weekly grocery shop. I've already got two children to house, clothe, feed and educate, and as much as I've come to care for Kelly, _you_ are my first priority – I want you and your sister to at least have the _option_ of college and that's already a dubious enough prospect with money as it is."

"It would be _two_ years, mom," Andy implored. "And Sev already has loads of jobs so he can pay his own way."

"It's not that simple, Andy," she informed him. She truly had come to care for her son's best friend a great deal, and it was silently breaking her heart that she could not do anything for him, but the depth of her emotions didn't change reality.

The first time she saw him had been on the day Andy started kindergarten – the room had been full of kids, some screaming with excitement, others with feelings of abandonment as their parents left them for the first time. Kelly Severide, with his intense blue-eyed stare and short, dark head of hair was in a corner by himself, watching everything going on around him warily, a scowl firmly in place. Elizabeth remembered seeing him and thinking _'trouble-maker'_ and had left hoping her son would find other friends. When she returned, Andy and Kelly were sat side-by-side on the swing-set talking quietly, ignoring everything and everyone else, and Elizabeth had felt her heart sink a little at the sight.

It had taken a few years, several fruitless endeavours in encouraging Andy to find a new best friend and a greater understanding of what made Kelly _Kelly_ , but eventually she had come to be more than grateful for the fact that the two boys had been drawn towards each other despite her earlier reservations, especially as it was clearly evident just how much good that friendship had done her son.

Andy had started kindergarten a shy little boy, who was more prone to hiding behind her knees and engaging in bouts of silence and tacit acceptance of demands made upon him rather than making friends with excited squeals of childish glee and declaring his own wants and needs, but there was something about Kelly that had given her son the confidence to stand up and be counted.

With Kelly by his side, Andy had slowly but surely become more vocal about his likes and dislikes, a humorous side replaced his earlier reticence to be noticed and while the mischief that the two got up to together could frequently be exhausting, bewildering and, at times, beyond infuriating, Elizabeth had been secretly glad to see Andy acting more like a happy if mischievous little boy, and less like a serious little man.

Over the years, the two of them had survived several trips to the principal's office, and despite the gravity of any given situation, the friends had always stood firmly side-by-side, neither one blinking at the repercussions of the other's actions so long as they faced them together. Their loyalty towards each other could often be as aggravating as it was endearing when that loyalty kept her out of the loop as to what had _really_ happened to cause the latest detention or the most recent split lip.

However, over the years she had come to know Kelly's character and realised that while he had a temper on him and could be somewhat prickly at times, his heart was one made of gold – after all, Kelly usually managed to find trouble while striving to protect the vulnerable and support the underdog. She couldn't really hold Kelly responsible for the trouble he found as her son shared the same sense of justice and was frequently the one that initiated things – Andy's morals merely added fuel to the fire when they were together and ensured that when they _did_ find trouble, they usually felt vindicated by the reasoning behind their actions and united by their cause.

When two became three with the addition of Scott Rice in junior high, she knew that she would likely never get the finer details of their more interesting escapades as the three closed ranks in a further effort to protect themselves from all and sundry. With the effects of his difficult home life easily visible to anyone looking, it should have been obvious that both Andy and Kelly would feel drawn to Scott, eager to help and protect him from any further pain.

Scott had in turn repaid their kindness and loyalty with his own fierce brand of friendship. While naturally more ebullient and easy-going than his other two friends, Scott was just as likely to throw a punch in their defence as either Andy or Kelly, and when the three were united by a common cause then there was no stopping them.

At times, Elizabeth wished they could find a better way to solve their problems than with violence or the threat of it, but she knew that school could be a brutal field of learning with frequent scuffles in the corridors, and so far not one of her boys had ever overstepped the mark and taken things beyond a black eye and a split lip. She also couldn't deny that she felt a perverse sense of satisfaction at knowing just how far Andy's friends would go to protect him – in fact, she imagined that if the circumstances should ever arise, they'd be the type to help him hide the body.

When her husband had been diagnosed with cancer and the doctor's optimism about his chances of survival had been less than stellar, the family had been united in their grief, trying to prepare themselves for the future where the possibility of losing a loved one was almost certain. Steve had tried to wear a brave face for his family, and while it had somewhat worked with their little girl who was too young to truly understand the circumstances, it had been less successful with Andy.

It was during that trying period when Elizabeth Darden had become truly grateful for Kelly Severide's presence in her son's life. When Steve was hunched over a toilet after his latest round of chemo and the house was filled with the oppressive sounds of retching and groans of pain, Kelly would suddenly appear and take Andy out for a few hours, sometimes taking his little sister along for the ride. The siblings would always be delivered back in time for a family meal where Steve would smile through the nausea and the pain and the despair, _genuinely_ smile because seeing the answering smiles on his children's faces did more for him than modern medicine could ever hope to achieve.

When Steve had finally passed away from the disease, Andy had been devastated. He'd tried to be brave, put on a strong front to help support her in the only way he thought possible, but she'd been anything but comforted, hating to see that distant look in her son's eyes and the disingenuous smile as he tried to convince her that he was ok – then Kelly turned up and Andy's dam had finally broken. She'd heard his sobs from downstairs and had instantly wanted to be by his side, offering and drawing what comfort they could from each other, but she knew that he would put that front right back up if she tried.

With Kelly, Andy had never felt the need to put up any kind of façade, and the tears had been as cathartic for him as the trip to the lake had later been in releasing his grief and putting that tentative first foot forward towards acceptance. No matter what little incident might have reignited Andy's melancholy in the following weeks and months, Kelly was there by his side, judgement free and either silently supportive or vocally expressive depending on the situation – words of comfort could be heard one day, encouragement the next and then Kelly would purposefully goad Andy into reacting, never settling for anything less than his real feelings on the matter at hand.

Elizabeth had always been told that rearing boys was a nightmare, that the terrible twos was doubly so with boys and that the teenaged years were angst-ridden and full of rebellion, and she had been prepared for it as best as anyone can be for such an eventuality, but thankfully, she had been misinformed. That was not to say that Andy was a model child, far from it – his misadventures were too many to count and his stubborn streak was rivalled only by that possessed by his best friend, but all things considered, she had been lucky.

Of course that didn't stop her from dreaming up an easier route through Andy's teenaged years, one with fewer letters home and trips to the principal's office, and she _had_ hoped that with the recent inclusion of the more sensible and cool-headed April Sexton into their little group that the other three would calm down somewhat, but it seemed unlikely, especially given her change of status from Kelly's friend to _all_ of their friend only came about because they united to defend her honour from a spiteful high school jock, as well as the rest of the school and its pernicious gossip.

However, at the end of the day, despite their many escapades, Elizabeth could be nothing but grateful for all of them and their friendship with Andy, but Kelly Severide's presence was invaluable, and it hurt her more than words could express that she was unable to help the young man in his hour of need. She had known that his home life was far from happy, and while perhaps not fraught with the same dangers that Scott had once briefly faced, Kelly, unlike his friend, had had no one else to speak up on his behalf.

She'd often toyed with the idea of calling social services herself, although she knew that he would never have forgiven her and would certainly never have trusted her again after such a move. At the end of the day she had convinced herself that he was not in danger and that it was just a rather sad and somewhat uncomfortable place to call home. Knowing how things had ended up with Mrs Severide, Elizabeth could not help but play the _'what if'_ game, wondering if things might perhaps have been better had she stepped in earlier and acted as the adult she was supposed to be, or if it would simply have meant that Kelly would have spent even longer in the potentially dangerous environment that Vince had hinted at.

"I really wish it could be different, baby," she said as she cupped her son's face and willed him to see the sincerity of her words. "But it simply isn't feasible."

The tears in her eyes and the regret in her voice were the only things that stopped him from further lashing out and attacking her. Things _had_ been tough financially since his father had died – his dad had been the sole breadwinner before his illness, and when he could no longer work, Andy's mother had stepped up to the plate, but with only a high school diploma and little work experience to her name she had been somewhat limited. Andy knew that his mother worked hard, frequently exhausted by the week's end, and that every now and then they still needed a little help from Aunt Sarah and her husband to pay the bills and fill the cupboards.

Wanting to help out, Andy had taken his cues from Kelly, who had long since been contributing to his mother's measly income – work in the neighbourhood was always his first stop and it was varied, from mundane yard work to more challenging work on car repairs or house maintenance. Sometimes, he went further afield with Kelly, up to the lakeshores north of Chicago where Sev often helped out a family friend in one of the small marinas, mainly doing basic maintenance work on local boats.

Due to their age and the nature of the work, most of the jobs were cash in hand, which suited them both perfectly, but it also meant that they frequently did not receive even minimum wages from some of the more unscrupulous employers. Thomas, up at the lake, could not really afford to pay either of them a full wage, but he did what he could and was flexible with the hours they worked, so more often than not it was a blessing, especially since Sev found working there more cathartic than anything else. However, there were people in the neighbourhood who would pay a pittance for a solid day's work and it was hard not to feel resentful.

Unfortunately for Kelly, the situation required that he swallow his pride and take what money he could if he hoped to have food in the cupboards. Some months were more difficult than others and the sad choices needed to be made between hot water or electricity, a working stove or a functional shower – the apartment was old and full of faults, and even Kelly's burgeoning knowledge of home maintenance was not always enough to keep it in working order.

It was hard to think of Kelly sitting in a group home somewhere idling away his time, always used to fighting for more of his friend's attention in the harder months, as he strove to earn as much money as he could and put at least a few problems to rest until the next disaster struck.

"I'm sorry, mom," Andy sighed as he leaned back into the couch. "I just…I _hate_ thinking of him being out there, dealing with all this crap alone."

"I know, baby," Elizabeth tried to sooth her son, gently running an idle hand through his hair. "But Vince will be back out there tomorrow, and you know he'll do everything he can to make sure Kelly is safe."

"Yeah," Andy said morosely. "I just hope he's ok."

"Get some sleep, Andy," his mother kissed him gently on the forehead. "Everything will look better tomorrow, trust me."

* * *

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Kelly grunted as Jenkins further pushed his arm up behind his back. The carer had come storming into the laundry room and thrown him down against the dryer, knocking his already bruised ribs as he was roughly slammed down on the hard surface, and started shouting about some cop and his surprise visit. "The cop dealing with my case was a woman and I've not seen her since the hospital."

"Bullshit!" Jenkins screamed, spittle spraying the side of his face. "You called someone!"

"How? I don't even have a phone!" Kelly tried to shout back as he fought against the pain that was working its way down his arm.

"There's a phone here," Jenkins said with another vicious pull, eliciting a wounded scream from the boy caught beneath his weight.

"In a locked office," Kelly countered, his vision swimming. He heard fast-approaching steps but he knew that no salvation was to be found in them – the only two carers on shift were the very two who had hurt him in the first place. As for the other occupants, Darnell was currently MIA and Troy, the only one likely to intercede on his behalf anyway, was at work. Krzysztof was holed up in his room, likely with his head in a book and ignoring everything else and Manuel…poor little Manuel was probably hiding under his covers, terrified that his former protector was the one at the mercy of such cruel bastards.

"When this cop comes back, you say anything about what happened here and I swear to God, I will _end_ you," Jenkins promised. "Your mom's in the nut house, which means you're stuck here, and I can and will make your life hell if you cause me any trouble…you and that little Spic bastard!"

"He's just a little kid, stay the hell away from him!" Kelly shouted back, finding his voice as he thought of the two bullies going after the tiny boy. "What the hell has he ever done to you?"

Anderson stepped in at that point and punched him across the mouth in an effort to shut him up, but his actions caused outrage in his co-conspirator.

"What the hell, man?" Jenkins hissed angrily. "What the hell do you think the cop is going to say when he sees a bruise on his face?"

"Kid's already covered in bruises," Anderson shrugged unrepentantly.

"Not on his face!" Jenkins replied. There _were_ bruises on the kid's face, but they were _fading_ bruises, and any half decent detective would be able to tell the difference.

"Hey, it's bad enough we got to deal with two niggers, a Spic and that damned Polack, but no way in hell am I going to take any lip from some Mick bastard about _anything_! Besides, you read his file – fighting is second nature to him, so I'm sure it won't take much to convince this Dago cop the kid's been causing trouble."

"Racist asshole," Kelly muttered, his jaw aching as he spoke.

"Shut the fuck up, kid, unless you want another shiner to add to that collection you're working on," Anderson warned.

Kelly kept quiet, fully aware that Anderson kept his promises – he was the _worst_!

Jenkins was in his late twenties and a man highly unsuited to social work. He was well-built and loved to lord his height and strength over his victims, his cruel streak further fuelled by his casual racism and bouts of violence. Jenkins seemed more reactive in the heat of the moment, but while his violence was somewhat uncontrolled it was almost always short-lived, and died a quick death once he'd congratulated himself once again on his dominance.

Anderson was older than Jenkins, late forties at least, and he was also completely unpredictable. Like his friend he was powerfully built with an imposing frame, but his racist rhetoric was altogether more sinister, his violence cool and calm and carefully executed. Like Jenkins, he sought to create the circumstances when he was spoiling for a fight, but unlike Jenkins, he also struck out with no prior warning whatsoever – Kelly had seen the guy punch Darnell in the stomach simply for walking by at the wrong time.

With Jenkins, it was all about the power he held over his victims and he tended to get bored quickly once he felt his point was made, but for Anderson it was all about violence for violence's sake and it seemed to excite him in a way that sickened Kelly.

They heard the front door and Jenkins hissed out a curse, shoving Kelly from him as he moved towards the door.

"That'll be Troy," the carer said as he looked at Kelly who was huddled on the floor, carefully cradling his throbbing arm. "You say jack shit to him, to _anyone_ , same promise applies." With that, he left, but Anderson remained.

"Not having a good time of it, are you kid?" Anderson smiled, not looking upset at the observation at all.

Kelly stayed quiet, not wanting to further aggravate the man and invite more pain his way. He still ached from the frantic attack he had endured from his mother when she lost her already somewhat tenuous grip on reality – the fresh attack by his supposed _'carers'_ had added another layer of bruises and another wave of pain washed over him at every move, every breath.

"Cat got your tongue?" Anderson demanded as he took a step towards Kelly, growing furious as the kid still refused to acknowledge him. "Answer me, goddamn it!" he said as he grabbed Kelly by the shoulders and threw him up against the wall, eliciting another cry of pain from the injured boy.

Kelly didn't know what to say or do as Anderson leaned in towards him, breathing heavily across his face, a satisfied grin and eyes only scant inches away from his own, body pressed firmly against his own. It was only then, with Anderson's body pushed up against his own, that Kelly realised with dread _just_ how much violence turned the vicious carer on, and panicking more about the consequences of _that_ reaction rather than further punches, he lashed out, kneeing the man hard in the groin, desperately ignoring the erection he felt as he did so.

Anderson was caught off guard and let Kelly go immediately as he moved to gently cup himself in an effort to alleviate the pain. Kelly didn't hesitate. He ran out of the room with only one destination in mind – the front door.

"They're just going to send you right back here!" Anderson's pained voice followed him as Kelly made his way towards the stairs out of the basement, pausing only to pull loose storage boxes down behind him in an effort to slow down his pursuer. "Who do you think they're going to believe, huh? Some kid, with a history of fighting and multiple suspensions to his name, with crazy already running through his blood? Or a former cop with a list of commendations to his name?"

Kelly barely listened to the words as he made his way up the stairs, his fight or flight instinct engaged firmly in flight mode, desperate to get away from Anderson, his perversions and the very real fear of what might happen if he stuck around. On reaching the top of the stairs he saw Jenkins, who had come to investigate the shouting – no longer caring about the consequences of fighting back and causing trouble, Kelly lashed out, catching the man heavily on the side of his face with a clenched fist even as he dodged to the side of Jenkins's clawing hands.

The front door was in sight, and he fumbled with the deadbolt as he heard movement behind him. He frantically wrenched the door open and raced through only to feel a hand grab at the collar of his jacket, dragging him back across the threshold. Kelly was momentarily knocked off balance, but he ducked his head forwards and pulled hard, ignoring the pain that flashed up his injured arm as it was yanked back, caught in the sleeve of his jacket, wrestling until he felt himself free of it, leaving an empty coat in Jenkins's hands and almost face-planting into the doorstep at the sudden lack of restraint.

"They'll bring you back!" Anderson shouted ominously from behind his co-conspirator, but Kelly wasn't listening. He was running as fast as he could in the opposite direction, his socked feet barely feeling the unforgiving tarmac beneath as adrenaline surged him forward into the darkness of night.

* * *

 _ **Please let me know what you think - this is also un-betaed, so please tell me if you spot any mistakes. Thanks!**_

 _ **Next chapter already started, but things are still hectic so no guarantees it will be up this coming week (although I willl try, promise!).**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Sorry for the delay - dealing with family emergencies, the storms**_ **and** _ **the floods hasn't left much time for anything else.**_

 _ **Thanks once again to those who have taken the time to read and review/message.**_

* * *

"No way in hell would Sev run away for no reason!" Rice shook his head adamantly. "He told me not to worry, that he planned on keeping his head down and on straight because he didn't want to risk anything until he was back with his mom."

"When did he tell you that?" Vince asked, leaning forward in his seat in earnest. He'd just broken the news that Kelly had run away from the group home the previous night – according to the carers, the kid had simply had enough and disappeared into the night. Vince's suspicions had immediately come right back to the forefront, but without any evidence to the contrary, he had to take the carers at their word, because _no one_ was saying anything, not even the other kids in the home.

Vince couldn't really blame them – if his gut was right then that group home was a desperately unhappy place, and who would want to risk making things worse for themselves unless they were guaranteed safety? In his many years on the Force, Vince had seen too many victims being shipped straight back to their abusers simply because they lacked sufficient evidence to act upon accusations.

Sometimes it boiled down to a simple case of _'he said, she said'_ , and as it was _'innocent until proven guilty'_ , words were often deemed insufficient evidence – add in a bunch of kids who were all too often written off as little more than troubled attention-seekers, and the value of those words sadly plummeted. Unfortunately, while he absolutely understood their reticence, he was also completely frustrated by it, because unless one of them decided to take the risk then there was no way of finding out what had happened to Kelly Severide, and every cop instinct he possessed and had honed over his many years of service screamed out that _something_ had happened.

"He told me at school, after…" here Scott paused – it was after Kelly had gone off on one with Miss Walker, just before the gym teacher had marched him off towards the principal's office. It was typical of Kelly – he was in a whole world of trouble, his life was in tatters and his future uncertain, but he still took the time to reassure his friend and try to make Scott feel better. However, he wondered if he reminded the cop of Sev's earlier outburst that it would only serve to reinforce the belief that Kelly had disappeared voluntarily.

"After…?" Vince prompted.

"There was an incident at school," April said, looking up and into the homicide detective's eyes with an unwavering stare. She had guessed when the supposed conversation had taken place, given the limited time they had shared that day in school after they had found out about Kelly's mother, a day that seemed months ago now. "He had a pretty heated argument with one of the teachers and he was suspended for it. And no," she shook her head at the question on Vince's lips. "I don't know what the argument was about. But I _do_ agree with Scott, and I promise you that Kelly would not run away just because he didn't like the group home, especially not without calling one of us – there _has_ to be a reason."

From the way Rice was squirming in his chair it was clear that he knew _something_ about the cause of Kelly's confrontation with his teacher, but evidently he didn't want to say anything in front of his other friends. That surprised Vince somewhat – while he knew that the group had plenty of secrets, he didn't think that they kept them from each other, as they always seemed to present a united front to the world.

"Ok," Vince agreed, and he _did_ agree with them but he certainly didn't want to clue the kids in to the true extent of his unease, certain that they would rush in and do what they could to help their friend, regardless of any possible dangers to themselves.

"What's going to happen next?" Mrs Darden asked. "What's being done to find Kelly?"

"I don't really know, missing persons is not my area of expertise, I'm afraid," Vince shrugged, not pointing out that he usually only got involved when the missing turned up dead. "Normally you'd have to wait forty-eight hours before declaring someone as _'missing'_ but Kelly is a minor, so in theory there will already be a search, people out canvassing the local area around the group home in Logan's Square. I imagine someone will come around and question one or all of you at some point, to see if he's been in touch…"

"What do you mean by _'normally'_ and _'in theory'_?" April interrupted, getting straight to the heart of the matter.

"Kelly is sixteen and a boy, and those two things already feed the stereotype of your average troubled runaway, and runaways, people who go missing voluntarily, are usually lower down on the priority list," Vince admitted sadly. "There are a lot of kids on the streets of Chicago – some of them are there because they don't want to be found and others and there because no one ever bothered to look – the too few available resources tend to be directed towards the more vulnerable, meaning younger and, generally speaking, female."

"But we don't know that he _did_ go missing voluntarily," April pointed out.

"We've got a couple of eyewitnesses that said they saw him running away from the home under his own steam," Vince had told them that already, but Kelly's friends were nothing if not dedicated. "By all accounts, he left of his own free will."

"If he ran away from that place just because he was unhappy then he would have come to one of us!" Andy insisted. " _Something_ must have happened!"

"I don't doubt you there, kid," Vince stated firmly. "But until we get some evidence, _some_ _hint_ as to what happened, then we don't even know where we should begin looking."

"You just said that no one would even _be_ looking," Scott said, throwing his hands in the air in frustration.

"No, what I said was that the full weight of the department's resources would unlikely be thrown behind the search," Vince contradicted the young man. "The police _are_ looking, and they're investigating matters at the group home and they're canvassing the local area and looking into Kelly's private life in an effort to ascertain where he might have gone…"

"He'll hate that," Andy said quietly, thinking of how much his deeply private friend would resent the intrusion into his personal matters.

"People _are_ looking for him…" Vince continued. "But you need to be prepared for the fact that the search may well be a fruitless one and one that will be shelved if there are no results soon. If Kelly is able, then we just have to hope that he'll come back to us when he's good and ready."

"' _If Kelly is able'…_ " Elizabeth Darden repeated in a broken whisper, as those words took her to every dark corner of Chicago.

Andy, who had been furious at his mother's refusal to give Kelly a home even temporarily, saw the unshed tears and heard the distress in her voice and silently cursed himself for not realising just how much she was hurting – he knew she cared for Kelly, but his own anger and frustration at the situation had rendered him blind to the true extent of her compassion. He knelt down in front of her and gently took her hands into his own, giving them a gentle squeeze.

"He'll be ok, mom," Andy promised. "Kelly's been looking out for himself for years already – he's strong enough to get through this and anything else." He didn't really believe his own words, thinking that his friend had been through too much already and whatever else may have happened to him could have finally tipped the balance of scales away from Kelly, but he hoped that there was enough conviction in his voice to offer his mother some support, some _hope_.

"Last week of school before summer break starts tomorrow," Scott said somewhat absent-mindedly. "It won't feel right without Sev there." He, like Andy, knew that Kelly was a fighter, that he had faced down problem after problem and had always come out on top, if a little battered and bruised, in the end, but during those times he'd always had a friend by his side. Now, Kelly had no one and no one even seemed to know where he was, and Scott could do nothing about the leaden feeling in his gut that told him wherever Kelly was, he needed his friends now more than ever.

* * *

Kelly was freezing. Summer had arrived and while the milder weather was welcome, Chicago was not called the Windy City for nothing – the breeze coming in off Lake Michigan as well as the lingering tendrils of Spring and the cloudy night sky were enough to chill him through to the bones, especially without shoes and a jacket.

He'd left Logan's Square at a run, escaping the threatening voices and even more threatening consequences of remaining behind. He'd run and run until he could no longer draw in a single breath and then he'd ducked down into a shopfront's doorway out of the wind, hands on his knees as he sucked in as much air as he could, his whole body shaking with exertion while the panic was still working its way through his system, his nerves shot completely to hell. Once his breathing was back under control, he sat down as close to the door as possible in an effort to cut out most of the draught and hugged his knees close to try and keep himself somewhat warm.

His first thought had been to get back home, to his own neighbourhood and his own friends to a place he knew and trusted. His home had its rough patches, but the local mobster, old-school gangster Patrick "Paddy" O'Byrne, had strict rules and number one on the list was that no one inside the neighbourhood was to be touched – it gave the kids relative safety on the streets and rival gangs knew they faced serious reprisals if they did anything beyond driving straight through the area.

However, no matter how much of a safe haven if may be from the surrounding gang violence, Kelly knew that if he went back, he risked proving Anderson correct – he risked being shipped straight back to that hell of a group home and suffering through the consequences of his actions before his frantic escape.

He knew that he was seen by many as a problem child, knew that they tended to view him with a mixture of pity and suspicion, knew that all that was likely to be exacerbated since his mother's latest episode. Because of that, Kelly had a nasty feeling that Anderson was right, that the authorities _would_ believe the carers over the troubled kid with a history of mental health problems running in the family.

Unfortunately he didn't know what to do to solve that particular problem. His mother was obviously still out of the picture and he didn't even know where his father was living these days. He could go to his friends, but he didn't really want to confess as to what had happened back in Logan's Square, in fact he didn't even want to think about it, and besides, there was nothing they could do – they could cheer him up and let him vent and give him a whole hell of a lot of sympathy, but they couldn't stop him from being shipped back to the group home by DCFS.

He could go to Paddy, knew that the old man's sense of obligation to his fellow residents and his own unique brand of justice would see Anderson taking a long nap in a shallow grave, but he also knew that there would be a cost to that and it would be far more than he was willing to pay for a little vengeance and some peace of mind.

He couldn't stay on the streets – one night and he was already so cold and hungry that a longer duration seemed like a death sentence. With morning just around the corner, he didn't know where to go and what to do, but food and drink and somewhere warm was surely the first step, and he was limited as to where he could find any of that without being turned over to the cops, handed back to DCFS and shipped back to Logan Square.

"Hey man, get the hell out of my doorway!" came an angry shout.

Kelly looked up from the stoop he was huddled in to see an old Hispanic man scowling fiercely at him. He looked out past him towards the dawning day, the grey clouds heavy with rain and completely uninviting. At the same time, his arm was stiff and his ribs ached, he was cold and hungry and unbelievably exhausted and he possessed absolutely no will to get into another confrontation.

He sighed heavily and carefully manoeuvred himself up, trying to use only the one arm and unable to hide the wince as the movement pulled on his injuries. The old man's scowling face was replaced by narrowed, assessing eyes as he took in the stranger's movements, his fierce façade softening slightly as Kelly moved out of the shadows and his bruises, as well as his youth, were accentuated by the early morning light.

"Ah, dammit, kid!" the man muttered, reaching out a hand to steady the shaky youth, only to see him flinch violently away from him. The old man lifted his hands, palms up to show that he meant no harm. "I ain't aiming to hurt you," he said gently. "Come inside and we'll get you warmed up and you can tell me what the hell happened to you."

"No cops?" Kelly asked tentatively. He wasn't in trouble, he had done nothing wrong, he told himself firmly, but he didn't want to risk being sent back before he was at least in a position to defend himself.

The man narrowed his eyes slightly at the question, but shook his head all the same. "No cops, kid – hell, no more questions if you don't want to answer them, but you best get your ass inside before you can't feel it anymore."

"Already can't feel it," Kelly muttered more to himself than to his new companion. It was true, the cold had long since numbed his body on the outside, but the pain insisted on flaring through him with each and every movement that aggravated his injuries.

The shop had a small front room, and as Kelly looked around he could see that it was a computer repair shop – the front of house was mainly just a couple of chairs, a low table and the counter, but Kelly could make out old laptops, broken motherboards, dusty hard drives and many more components he couldn't identify.

"So…are you going to tell me anything?" the old man asked as he locked the door behind him out of habit, only to quickly unlock it once he noticed the way the kid stiffened up at the thought of being locked inside with a stranger. He moved away so that there was nothing between the kid and escape, hoping that would help to put the boy at ease.

"I thought you said no questions?" Kelly asked, sounding a lot less impudent than he could have done due to the tremble in his voice and the way his whole body curled in on itself as he tried to get the words out.

"You might be better off for answering them, though," the man said not unkindly. "I'm Cesar," he offered his hand, holding it at a safe distance so as not to intimidate the kid.

"Kelly," he returned the handshake after a moment of staring at the open hand, weighing up the risks. He desperately tried not to take too much pleasure in the way the warm hand melted through the icy feeling in his own fingers.

"Christ, kid, you're colder than a pair of yak's balls!" Cesar exclaimed, before looking around him. "One second, Kelly." He disappeared behind the counter and through a door, returning a moment later with an armful of clothes. "Put this on first," Cesar said, handing him a ratty old hoody from the University of Chicago, a flaming phoenix still just visible amongst the fading pattern.

Kelly almost dived into the piece of clothing. It was clearly a well-loved item, and most of the fleecy lining had long since worn away to next to nothing, but for Kelly it was like slipping in between two heating blankets.

"You'd best put this on, too," Cesar said, handing him a black leather jacket. It looked relatively new and although it was quite a short jacket, the added layer helped start to thaw Kelly somewhat. "I don't have any spare shoes or socks here, but when Stacie opens up next door, I'll go and see if she's got anything laying around."

"Thanks, but...I can't ask you to do that. I…I can't pay for anything," Kelly tried to explain, his voice choking up with emotion as the act of kindness seemed to exacerbate the vicious cruelty he had faced not twelve hours before.

"You didn't ask, I offered, and she runs a thrift store so it's not like I'll need to take out a second mortgage to put something on those ice-blocks you call feet," the old man shrugged off Kelly's unease. "Now, do you want to tell me what got you into this state?" Cesar asked kindly, laying a gentle hand on Kelly's shoulder, ignoring the slight flinch as he steered the kid towards the back room and a tattered but comfy armchair. He then moved to the sideboard and put the kettle on, thinking the kid looked like he needed to be defrosted from the inside and that a cup of coffee would do the trick.

"Not really," Kelly shook his head as he sat down. "Bad week, I guess."

"My car is in the shop and likely on her last legs, my dog ate rat poison and is still at vets at vast expense and my lousy son-in-law lost his job, _again_ , and is asking me for money, _again_ – _that_ is a bad week. From the looks of things, _you_ hit bad first thing Monday morning…hell, the way you look, bad doesn't even come close!"

"Thanks," Kelly laughed, Cesar's frank manner and blunt observations doing a lot to ease his frazzled nerves. "My mom's…she's in the hospital…a long term kind of deal," Kelly finally said, not wanting to explain _why_ she was in the hospital.

"And your dad?" Cesar asked as he handed over the warm mug and started looking for some food, only to find a couple of Pop Tarts.

"Out of the picture, mostly," Kelly shrugged, trying to pretend that he didn't care – truth be told, his father's casual indifference was worse than anything his bat-shit crazy mother or sadistic carers could throw at him.

Cesar lifted an eyebrow at _'mostly_ , easily picking up on more than a little tension there. He felt sorry for the kid

"There anywhere else you can go?"

"DCFS put me in a group home, but I can't go back there," Kelly said subconsciously bringing his injured arms up across his battered ribs at the reminder of what his stay there had already cost him. "I _won't_ go back there."

"No, I can see that might not be such a great idea," Cesar replied, a deep frown marring his features as he took in the bruised and battered figure in front of him and read between the lines at just where, exactly, that damage had come from. "There no place else you can go?"

"Not really," Kelly shook his head.

"No friends?" Cesar probed, trying to get the reticent kid to give him _something_ to work with.

"What can they do?" Kelly asked with a mirthless laugh, genuinely interested in the answer because as far as he could see, there was nothing to be gained from going down that avenue. "I can't stay with them – they've got problems of their own," he said, thinking of the Darden's and their constant struggle since losing the family patriarch, and the Rice family, still trying to pick up the pieces of the damage caused by drink-induced violence. "I can go to them and I can bitch and moan and I can let off some steam, sure, but at the end of the day, I'll still have nowhere to go but back to DCFS, and I won't do that! I _won't_ go near those sadistic, perverted assholes!"

"What the hell did they do to you, kid?" Cesar demanded a little more forcefully than he had intended, his concern peaking at the word _'perverted'_ and all the dreadful connotations those nine letters evoked.

"They didn't…not…" Kelly struggled to find the right words. He hadn't meant to say anything about what had happened back in Logan Square, too uncomfortable with the very idea of it all, but his anguish had brought it all out in a rush before he'd truly had time to gather the right words together. He could tell that Cesar was genuinely concerned – in fact, the guy looked like he wanted to hurt someone and Kelly gratefully got the feeling that ire was not directed _his_ way.

"Kelly, you _can_ talk to me," Cesar tried to encourage the kid who looked damn near to breaking point.

"One of them…he tried," Kelly offered tentatively, quickly looking up at the older man in an effort to gauge his reaction, relieved to see that no disgust or pity crossed his features. "But I got away."

Cesar finally nodded once he sensed that he wasn't going to get any more on the matter, not just yet, anyway. He tried desperately to keep his emotions in check, knowing just how jittery the kid must be feeling.

His own daughter had suffered through a similar experience, but unfortunately for her, she had not been able to escape – eighteen and half drugged out of her mind, she hadn't manage any form of effective resistance and the aftereffects of that night were still felt even years later.

Cesar himself hadn't found out the truth about that night for almost four years. Her silence was not from fear for the return of her tormentor or even the consequences of his actions, although the knock-on effect of that had kept her away from guys for a while and left her far more wary in general. No, her real anxiety was from wondering about what others, and especially her parents, would think of her should the events of that terrible night come to light.

She hadn't worried about what her father might do to the arsehole that had spiked her drink and forced himself upon her – it hadn't even crossed her mind that he would literally tear the neighbourhood apart in an effort to get to the one who had hurt his little angel. No, what she had been _most_ scared about was finding out that should her father discover the truth, he would be angry or feel ashamed of her, perhaps even pity her, or, worst of all, feel disgusted by her.

Years after the event and all he could think about was the many ways in which he had failed her – at the time, he hadn't known that what she was hiding from him was more than the typical teenage escapades and rebellious acts, was, in fact, a much darker secret. He had done a lot of reflection, tried to pinpoint what he had missed, how he had failed her so monumentally that she would not even go to him in the first place in her hour of need.

Once Caterina had found out what depressing thoughts were preoccupying him, she had done her best to comfort him, as strange as that was given the circumstances – she'd told him that she had felt ashamed that she'd let herself get into such a position, that she had known the guy was suspect but had ignored the warning signs and then been unable to fight the guy off and protect herself. By the age of fifteen she'd lost her virginity and by eighteen she had a string of ex-boyfriends to her name, each one more troublesome than the last – when she left school, she had felt sure that she knew all there was to know about guys and their desires. She told her father that she had felt beyond stupid once her naivety was exposed in the cruellest of ways.

Cesar had spent years trying to reassure her that he had never held her at fault, even after finding out that she'd been drinking that night, something that she had somehow interpreted as meaning she _'deserved it'_. He'd tried to impress upon her the fact that the only person to blame was the arsehole who'd spiked her drink and raped her. He tried to convince her that he was proud of the way she had overcome the trauma and that he was not embarrassed or ashamed or angry or disgusted, or any one of the long list of negative adjectives she had conjured up in her own mind.

For the most part, he believed that his daughter had reconciled with the events that occurred all those years ago. She was still affected by them, some days more than others, but she was no longer twisted up inside with self-disgust and self-recrimination, and that was more than he had ever dared to hope for when the whole affair had first come to light.

He didn't know if Kelly was telling the truth, if nothing had actually happened to him or if he was simply denying it because he didn't want to talk about what had truly occurred that night, but there were certain mannerisms that reminded him of Caterina all those years ago when she'd insisted that she was _'fine'_ after a bad night out with friends – the way he shied away from physical contact or even the possibility of it, the frequent glances around the room to check that his path to the exit was still free and clear, even the manner in which he tried to avoid eye contact for too long. If his aggressor had gone no further than threats, Kelly was still very visibly affected by the attack.

"There any place you can go, somewhere you feel safe, a sanctuary of sorts?" Cesar asked, desperately trying to find somewhere the kid could go to that didn't risk him being sent back to further abuse.

Kelly sat up straight at the word _'sanctuary'_ as one place came straight to mind. His father was intangibly linked with the place, and for that Kelly felt a deep well of resentment rise up in him, but he had always felt safe there, protected by the men and women that made the place special, made that brotherhood a large part of his dreams for the future.

He knew that there was just as much chance of being sent back to DCFS if he went there than anywhere else but from everything he had seen during his time at the house he thought it was unlikely they would hand him over without a fight, without trying to at least protect him first – he felt that they would listen to him, _believe_ him, even, and do what they could to help him out of his god-awful circumstances.

"There's one place I could maybe go to," Kelly offered tentatively. He could always go, and if he was wrong and things went sour, well…then he would just have to run again. He was fast running out of options and he couldn't rely upon the kindness of strangers to help him out until his mother was out of the hospital.

"Name it, and I'll take you there," Cesar promised, feeling a little hope that there was perhaps someone who could help the poor kid, and ashamedly relieved that the burden of the kid's well-being would no longer be on his shoulders as he weighted up his options.

"Firehouse 51," Kelly stated firmly. "You can take me to Firehouse 51."

* * *

 _ **Please let me know what you think and if you spot any errors - thanks!**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Sorry this has been a long time coming. RL has been more than a little problematic lately, and writing and reading and just about everything nice in life has had to take a backseat.**_

 _ **Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read and review/message - your encouragement has been greatly appreciated.**_

* * *

"I swear to God, Johnson, if you leave your turnout gear in the middle of the floor again I will have you scrubbing toilets for the rest of your candidacy!" Lieutenant Wallace Boden stated firmly.

"Sorry, LT," the candidate mumbled as he hurried to move his gear to the correct spot.

"You _sure_ this is where you want to be, kid?" an unfamiliar voice drew Boden's attention from behind him and he turned to find a stranger there talking to a figure that took Boden far longer to recognise than it should have done.

"Boden likes to sound like a hard-ass, but he's a soft touch at heart," came the reply, the accompanying mischievous smile almost daring the Lieutenant to contradict him.

"Kelly?" Boden's gruff voice finally managed to ask, shocked as he took in the battered figure that stood before him.

"Hey," the kid replied tentatively, looking uncomfortable as he realised that he was the recipient of more than just Boden's attention.

"Let's go to my office," Boden suggested before sweeping a look at his men that clearly stated they were to keep their mouths shut.

"I've got to get back to the shop," the stranger said to Kelly before turning another thoroughly assessing gaze on the uniformed man in front of him.

"Thanks, Cesar," Kelly replied as he made to shrug off the jacket only to be halted by a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Keep it, kid," the kindly Hispanic said. "Just promise to come see me in a few weeks, let me know you're doing ok."

"I will," Kelly promised. "Thanks…for everything."

"Not a problem," Cesar once again shook off the youngster's gratitude. "You know where I am if you need any help," he offered sincerely as he held out his hand.

"Thanks," Kelly laughed in an effort to fight off his turbulent emotions, feeling as though the word, no matter how often he repeated it, was wholly inadequate. He looked at the proffered hand and grabbed it before pulling Cesar into a quick hug, unable to voice the depth of his gratitude at the kindness of a stranger during a time he had needed it most.

"Keep in touch, kid," Cesar demanded firmly before moving away from Kelly towards to Boden – Kelly had insisted that the man was to be trusted, but Cesar rarely trusted anyone until they had proven themselves. "The kid's been through hell, you screw him over and we'll be having words," he promised quietly before heading back towards the road and his car, offering Kelly a final wave and a solemn nod of the head as he went.

Kelly watched him go and carried on watching even as Cesar got into his car and drove off. A hand on his shoulder made him jump, no matter how gently it had been put there, and he turned to find the furrowed brows of Boden directed his way.

"Come on, Kelly," Boden said quietly, unsure of how to deal with a jumpy version of a kid who was usually so cocky. "Let's go back to my office and you can tell me what's going on."

Kelly bit his lip and looked back towards the exit before meeting Boden's eyes once again – seeing only worry on his behalf there he nodded his head quietly and followed the tall man through the house.

Boden was deeply concerned – he had known Kelly for years, known him since he was a tiny kid excitedly following the firemen's every step round the house with a deep sense of fascination about all that was going on around him. For as long as Boden had been a part of Fifty-One, Kelly had been there too, so much so in fact, that there was even a photo on the wall of the house with Kelly and his friend, Andrew Darden, no older than six dressed in turnout gear so big they were almost drowning in it.

What always caught Wallace's eye, though, was the fact that it wasn't Benny Severide standing behind the two children in the photo with a smile on his face, but him. When little Kelly showed up at the firehouse it had usually been because Benny hadn't managed to arrange a babysitter, and so the whole house took the kid and his friend under their wing, as they so often did for their own in times of need. While Kelly had initially tried to follow his father, he soon gave up and instead turned his attention to the other firemen at Fifty-One, which had caused friction with Benny on more than one occasion.

Boden didn't know what it was about himself that seemed to attract Kelly's attention, but from very early on the kid had managed to firmly entrench himself in the Squad Lieutenant's company, quietly following him around the house, excitement gleaming in his eyes as he avidly took in every detail of what was going on around him, from washing the truck to maintaining the tools to the frantic energy of racing out for a call. Kelly had even managed to wrangle a few ride-alongs out of Boden, after several assurances that he would stay in the truck. Somewhere in all of that interaction, Boden had come to have almost paternal feelings of affection for the boy.

It was a joy to see the kid interact with the various members of the firehouse, his quietly wicked sense of humour a match for even the most scathing of comments directed his way. The kid's sharply intuitive mind would take him far in life as a firefighter and Boden was sure that was exactly what Kelly was aiming for – he lived and breathed for it and would be a smoke-eater before he knew it. The boy's piercing gaze took in all before him, although he always did his best to stay out of their personal lives just as he sought to keep his own life away from the firehouse quiet.

Boden knew that things had been difficult for the boy since Benny had divorced his mother and quickly moved on to start another family. Kathleen Severide had always struck Boden as a fragile little thing – her frame, while tall, held not an ounce of extra weight, and her fine cheekbones, crystal-clear blue eyes and dark wavy hair were accentuated by her constantly pale complexion. There were always bags under her eyes, no doubt exacerbated by Benny's frequent misadventures, and with a near-constant expression of agonising sadness, her emotive eyes frequently made it look as though she were two steps away from crying her heart out.

Boden and the rest of the house had silently watched from the side-lines as Benny screwed up his small family unit before, seemingly oblivious, moving on to the next one and repeating his mistakes. No one said anything, not wanting to cause a rift in a work environment where trust in your colleagues was paramount, but it didn't stop them from feeling bad for a kid they had all come to know and care about.

Poor Kelly had only been ten by the time the ink on the divorce papers had dried, and family life had hardly been a bed of roses before then. While Benny had simply jumped from one warm bed into another, Kelly had been left behind to pick up the broken pieces of his mother from the floor and deal with the fallout. Wallace was well aware that Kelly had taken on a progressively large burden of responsibility for one so young, working to support his increasingly erratic mother whenever and wherever he could find it and doing everything in his power to keep anyone from asking too many questions about the quality of his home life.

Kelly used to come by the firehouse on occasion after the divorce, looking to connect with his father, no doubt, but after one too many disappointments the boy only started showing up when he knew Benny would be absent. With Benny's recent move up to Kenosha, Boden wondered if the visits would increase or if Kelly would feel awkward and unwelcome without the tenuous link of his father to Fifty-One. On the rare occasion that he did make it to the firehouse, sometimes with Andrew Darden in tow, sometimes alone, it was clear to see that Kelly Severide was very different from the excitable and carefree child he had been when Boden had first met him.

There was a quieter, more pensive side to Kelly these days, and an almost constant sense of fatigue about him, as though he were weighed down by more troubles than he could bear. While Kelly could still pull down a mask to smile and pretend that everything was ok, Boden had known the boy too long to take him at face-value and be fooled by a token show of happiness.

Wallace had done what he could, tried to utilise the somewhat paternal relationship they already shared to try and get the boy to open up, but Kelly was like a clam when it came to sharing his personal problems – he'd smile and shrug his shoulders and insist that he was _'fine'_ and that had only become worse as he'd advanced to his mid-teens. When it became more than apparent that Kelly wasn't going to talk about whatever it was that was bothering him, Boden had instead decided to distract him from his problems.

With the help of several other members of Fifty-One, men and women who had long since come to care about the broody child, they kept him entertained with stories from some of their wilder calls, bringing out laughter and disbelief in equal measure. They taught him the basics in maintenance and very soon learned that Kelly was a natural, his understanding of the mechanics involved far surpassing their own as he aged. They invited him to watch the drills and get involved with the inevitable betting and one-upmanship that always accompanied them, revelling in the levity of those moments.

But at the end of the day, Boden could tell it had all been a distraction, a known one and a welcome one, but nothing more than a fleeting distraction, nonetheless. Whereas Darden would leave all smiles, chattering excitedly away, Kelly's longing and lingering gaze directed back towards the firehouse gave away the depths of his despair at the precarious situation he found himself stuck in and indicated just how much he valued the sanctuary of Fifty-One, and Boden was at a complete loss as to how to help him.

Kelly had long since lost interest in platitudes and saw the promissory nature of the phrase _'everything will be alright'_ as tantamount to waving a red flag at Fate after spitting in her face, and any time Boden tried to offer words of reassurance Kelly angrily shrugged them off. He liked to take care of his problems on his own, rarely seeking help from anyone else, and Wallace suspected that part of that came from having a father so wholly unreliable as Benny Severide.

His mistrust of others, particularly those in positions of authority, his stubborn pride and his determined struggle for independence all helped to fuel his rather introverted approach to life when it came to problem-solving, leaving Boden and any others who wanted to help scratching their heads.

Now, Kelly had turned up black and blue and clearly uncomfortable with the very _notion_ of talking about whatever had happened to him, and Boden was still stuck for ideas on what to do to help the boy.

"So," Boden began once they were settled in his tiny office, him on the rickety chair that looked as though it was going to collapse any second, and Kelly perched awkwardly on the edge of his narrow mattress doing his best to avoid the older man's eyes. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Kelly finally looked up and into Boden's eyes, seeing only concern and confusion there. He knew that he could trust the man, he had long since learnt that. What solace he had found at Fifty-One did not come about because of his father's presence, but because of Lieutenant Boden and all he had done to try and reach out to a lost and angry kid.

It was a common misconception that Kelly wanted to be a firefighter because of his father – while Benny Severide had undoubtedly been the one to introduce him to the concept, it had been Wallace Boden and Kelly's ready acceptance into the arms of Fifty-One that had cemented the idea in his head.

He couldn't deny that a large part of the appeal came from the excitement of the job – he'd only been observing on the side-lines but already the energy of a call carried with it an infectious adrenaline rush. Kelly had also seen what it meant to belong to a house like Fifty-One on a more personal level – a house that came with brothers and sisters who understood each other in a way that few others could manage, and carried each other's burdens without resentment and without counting up the tally at the end of the day. More than anything though, Kelly understood that it was the chance to be a part of something big, something meaningful – he couldn't save his mother, the last few weeks had been more than proof enough of that, but as a firefighter he could certainly save _someone_.

Spending time inside Fifty-One, Kelly had become familiar with a great many of the men and women who worked there, but Boden had been the one to earn his respect. Boden, the man who called him out on his crap even as he sought to understand the reasons behind Kelly's latest misadventure. Boden, who berated him for his troubles at school before encouraging him to knuckle down and focus. Boden, who scolded him for his reckless and impulsive behaviour only to sit him down and quietly tend to the fallout.

Benny Severide did his best to ignore his child and chose, instead, to focus on bolstering his already impressive professional reputation whenever and wherever possible. He let his wedding vows vanish into obscurity and his wife fade into the background as he found sexual satisfaction anywhere and everywhere except his marital bed. He abandoned his son in the shadows, seemingly more apathetic about his paternal duties than concerned about the consequences of his actions on his own kin. He left his family in pieces on the floor even as he sought to elevate his professional standing, determined to make sure that it was _his_ name that was heard rather than that of Firehouse Fifty-One.

Wallace Boden, however, was a man who placed greater value on the ethos of the job rather than his own worth, on not only saving people on the job but helping them whenever he could. He kept on trying to save Kelly, to teach him that he was _worth_ saving, and even though Kelly had never sought help from anyone that had never stopped Boden from offering, from always _trying_. To his own father he was all but invisible, and while Kelly didn't know who or what he was to Boden, he _did_ know that the man could be counted on to be there when needed.

On his darker days, the trips to Fifty-One became about distractions, and Boden had always been willing and able to provide them – he wouldn't push for answers that Kelly wasn't yet ready to give, but would instead sit patiently by his side as he explained one aspect or another of the job that Kelly hoped to one day share with him.

Kelly loved his father, for all of his imperfections, and he couldn't imagine a day when he wouldn't strive to earn some modicum of approval from the man, if only to prove to _himself_ that Benny Severide was wrong to abandon him so readily. However, for all that he loved his father, he didn't much like him – when he looked at Benny, he saw a firefighter and a damn good one at that, but he didn't see a good man and he certainly didn't see a good father, and that was a bitter pill to swallow.

When he looked at Boden he saw another damn good firefighter, but he also saw a man who always tried to do the right thing by everybody. Perhaps he looked at Boden through rose-tinted glasses because he only knew him within the confines of Fifty-One's walls, but of all the adults Kelly knew, Wallace Boden was one of the few who had not yet let him down.

"I…er…I don't really know where to start," Kelly mumbled. "Do you know about my mom?"

"No," Boden replied, a deep frown marring his features as events seemed to grow more complicated.

"She…er…went a little…crazy, I guess," Kelly finally said, still struggling to find the right words to describe his mother and what had happened, even a week after the event.

"Did she hurt you?" Boden asked, certain that few things could get the usually self-assured Kelly to get so tongue-tied.

"No," the teenager shook his head in denial, to Boden and to himself. He shifted in his seat trying to hide the grimace of pain that surely crossed his face, uncomfortable with the penetrating gaze being directed his way. The fresh pain of Anderson's and Jenkins's barrage helped dim the memory of his mother's attack, a few aches and pains and fading bruises were all that remained of the episode. The result of the assault from his so-called _'carers'_ , however, was still felt all too keenly.

His arm, which Jenkins had twisted up and behind his back, felt like it was hanging from a thread made of fire, eliciting a deep and painful burning sensation whenever he moved it too far. The split lip, a result of a nasty right hook from Anderson, seemed to continually re-open, making conversation somewhat uncomfortable. The bump on the back of his head was tender to the touch, but other than a slight headache that seemed perfectly content to stay in the background, it was bearable.

His ribs, however, felt as though they were scraping away at his lungs with every breath, stealing the air from them when the pain got to be too much, and his stomach felt as though it were peppered with nails, pulling at his skin with every movement. The cold of the night had helped to dim that particular sensation, but as he warmed up and the adrenaline from his flight faded away, the lancing pain was wearing away at what little strength he had left.

"Not really, anyway," Kelly eventually offered. He knew that Boden was tenacious and would likely find out the truth of the matter in the end anyway, but he didn't want his mother to carry the blame for the carers' assault.

' _Which means she hurt him_ some _, at the very least'_ , Boden thought to himself in frustration, unsure of what words of comfort he could offer the poor boy. "Do you know what set her off?"

"Oh yeah, she screamed it at me at the top of her lungs so I'm pretty sure the neighbours could tell you that," Kelly laughed bitterly. "You know how schools insist on those bullshit parent-teacher conferences? The ones where teachers insist on wasting time on a face-to-face while basically just regurgitating your last school report?"

"I'm not sure I'd call them _'bullshit'_ ," Boden offered with a wry grin. "But yes, I know what you're talking about – school wasn't _that_ long ago for me," he said with an arched eyebrow.

"I know, I know – they'd advanced from writing on papyrus to writing on slate by the time you went through the system," Kelly replied cheekily.

"Still young enough to knock you on your ass," Boden joked back, sobering immediately as he caught the way that Kelly subconsciously curled in on himself even at the obvious joke of violence, gingerly hugging his ribs.

"Anyway, she caught sight of someone there that she'd seen before…in her house…in her bed…with my dad…back when they were still married," Kelly shook his head angrily. He hadn't really had the chance to explore how he felt about _that_ particular revelation, given that dealing with the fallout of his mother's outburst had been more prominent, but he couldn't deny that he was angry and resentful that Benny had yet again created more problems without once again being there to deal with the consequences.

"Oh," Boden said, not knowing what else there was to say.

"Yeah… _'oh'_ is about right," Kelly lamented. "Turns out way back when, Benny got it on with a maths teacher who would later become _my_ maths teacher. Needless to say, my mom was not impressed."

"Did she cause a scene?" Boden wondered aloud, trying to understand the ins and outs of the story. Kathleen Severide was normally such a quiet, retiring woman, but Wallace had heard her shout before and knew that her temper could lead to some vicious words, he just hoped those words had been directed at the father and not the son.

"Not there, no, apparently that was one of the few times she was able to keep her shit together. I guess she was saving it for when she got home," Kelly shrugged. "She was under the impression that I knew about it and kept it from her."

"I can see why she'd be angry with _Benny_ ," Boden admitted freely. "But she sure as hell had no right to get angry with _you_ and I really can't understand why that would make her go _'crazy'_ , as you said – she's known Benny's faults too long and too well to be naïve about it now."

"I don't know," Kelly shook his head. "She's been a little… _off_ for a while now. She lost another job and she's been in bed most of the time since, sleeping and drinking mostly. Maybe this, and the fact that dear old dad is getting married _again_ was just too much for her to handle."

"You don't need to make excuses for her, Kelly," Boden stated firmly.

"I'm not," Kelly denied. " _Really_!"

"Good," Boden nodded. "Because _you_ are a sixteen year old boy and _she_ is supposed to be the parent."

"Try telling _her_ that," Kelly mumbled resentfully, fully feeling the sting of injustice at being the recipient of his mother's wrath over his father's actions. "Anyways, she checked herself into the psychiatric wing at UIC and I got dumped with Child Services."

"Benny?" Boden asked fiercely, quietly furious that Kelly had been forced into the care of the state rather than have Benny step up and be a proper father for once.

"Benny did what he always does when it comes to taking care of his family…absolutely nothing," Kelly pointed out bitterly.

Boden nodded, still unable to find the words that Kelly so desperately needed. He was all too familiar with Benny's rather oblivious, often confrontational approach to dealing with other people. There was a lot of professional respect between the two firemen, but beyond the confines of Fifty-One there was very little to bind them together, and Severide's continual mistreatment of his family, a common occurrence that Boden had been forced to watch from the side-lines all too often, was just one in a long list of grievances between the two.

"That doesn't explain this," Boden finally said, gesturing towards the battered frame of the teenager.

"A cop's word carries weight, doesn't it?" Kelly asked, unsure of just how much he was going to reveal to Boden. "Even an ex-cop?"

"Generally speaking that depends on the cop," Boden stated, already feeling his anxiety over the situation take a swan-dive at the implications behind Kelly's question. "Did a cop, or an _ex_ -cop, even, do this to you?"

Kelly looked at Boden, tried to gauge the man's possible reactions – he saw uncertainty there, anger, even a little confusion, but the over-riding emotion seemed to be concern and on Kelly's behalf.

"Yeah," he nodded. "But I mean…he's right – I'm some angry kid with a crazy mom and a history of troubled behaviour – no one is going to believe _me_ , especially over a cop," he said hopelessly.

" _I_ believe you," Boden replied immediately and with such certainty that Kelly felt his eyes tear up a little at the blind faith, unused to anyone but his small group of friends at school believing him and believing _in_ him. "I take it this happened at a group home or something? Wherever Child Services put you?"

Kelly agreed with a single nod, avoiding Boden's gaze while he tried to rein his emotions back in.

"Is there anyone at the house who can corroborate your story? Anyone else who suffered the same fate?"

"The same fate…" Kelly repeated slowly, shock hitting him hard in his already tumultuous stomach. "Oh my God," he whispered quietly to himself in disbelief. "I didn't even think…I just got the hell out of there as fast as I could and I didn't even stop and think…"

"Think about what?" the Squad Lieutenant asked. "Kelly?" he prodded after receiving no answer from the distressed young man.

"I left him there," Kelly replied quietly, lifting his head and catching Boden's eyes with a look so haunted that the older man had to divert his gaze for a moment.

"I'm going to call the police," he stated. "You're going to tell them exactly what happened and we _will_ sort this mess out, Kelly. I _promise_!"

"No!" Kelly said desperately, standing and making for the door. "You can't! They won't believe _me_ , they'll believe _him_! They'll send me right back to him and I can't..."

"Kelly!" Wallace shouted, grabbing the boy by his shoulders and sharply turned him around in an effort to stop Kelly from escaping and allow him the chance to look the kid in the eyes in an effort to try to calm him. When Boden heard the agonised groan, caught sight of the wince of pain and the way all of the blood drained from Kelly's already pale face, alarm bells started ringing. When Kelly swayed on the spot and his knees gave way, full blown panic set in.

"Yorke!" he shouted out for Fifty-One's PIC as he settled Kelly back onto the bed. "Yorke, get your ass in here _now_!"

An elfin red-headed young woman came rushing towards the Squad Lieutenant's office, wondering what the hell was going on. More people entered the dorm room, some out of curiosity while others, who knew who else was in Boden's office, were looking on anxiously. The PIC took one look at the barely conscious boy and ordered one of the firemen to go and grab her bag from the ambulance, her timid appearance dissolving behind her pronounced professionalism.

"What's going on here, Boden?" she asked as she reached for a pulse point, finding it too fast and not nearly strong enough for a healthy sixteen year old kid.

"I don't know," Wallace shook his head. Kelly had clearly been emotional and the bruises were proof enough that he was anything but _'fine'_ , however, the boy had gone from frantic but lucid to ashen and barely responsive. "He got hurt, but I don't know the full details. I was getting them when he…"

"When he what, Boden?" Yorke said as she measured Kelly's pupil dilations.

"Something he thought about, something he remembered…I don't know, but _something_ spooked him and he started to panic, and Kelly Severide does _not_ panic, not in all the time I've known him," Wallace stated firmly. "I grabbed him, tried to stop him…I think, maybe…maybe I hurt him?" he half asked, half stated.

"So he was obviously beaten," Yorke said as she felt to back of Kelly's head, feeling for any injuries there to explain his lack of responsiveness. "There's a small knot on the back of the head," she reported. "It doesn't feel like much but you never can tell with head injuries."

"Jesus!" Boden exclaimed as Yorke lifted the teen's tattered looking hoody unveiling a veritable palette of colours swathed across his torso.

"Shit!" Yorke hissed quietly as she took in the damage, gently running her hands across the torso feeling for damage.

"Yorke?" Boden asked, anxiety ratcheting at the tone in her voice.

"It's rigid here," Yorke said, indicating the right side, just below the rib cage. "I think there may be some damage to the liver. Wallace," she said softly but firmly. "We need to get him to a hospital asap."

"I'll carry him to your rig," Boden gently scooped up the now unconscious boy and hurried through the firehouse towards the bay. It would probably have been better to get him on a gurney, but if Kelly had been moving about all day chances were that the damage was already done and time was the primary factor now. "Cover for me with the Chief?" he asked one of his Squad members.

"You got it, LT," the fireman agreed, looking worriedly at the boy in his Lieutenant's arms. "Look after the kid and let us know what's going on."

Stein, the other medic on shift, climbed into the driver's seat while Boden settled Kelly on the gurney and Yorke set about charting her patient's vitals, ready to hand off to the staff at the hospital and get the young man seen to without delay.

"He's going to be ok, right?" the anxious Squad Lieutenant asked

"I wish I could give you an answer, Boden, but I just don't know," Yorke answered sadly.

"Come on, Kelly," Wallace pleaded softly. "You're a fighter, so fight!"

* * *

 _ **Please let me know what you think and if you spot any mistakes - thanks!**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**A huge thanks once again to everyone who has taken the time to read and review/message - your support has kept me going. Not too much more to go in the story now.**_

* * *

Boden had, unfortunately, long since become accustomed to hanging around hospitals waiting impatiently for news, but that familiarity never made the exercise any easier to bear, especially with a child's life in the balance. Kelly had been rushed through a pair of doors that he had firmly been told he was not allowed to enter before a harried nurse herded the Squad Lieutenant off to a small waiting room with a multitude of forms that she hastily shoved into his hand.

He had briefly looked over the forms and realised straight away that there were going to be problems – primarily, what the hell did he do about next of kin? He knew that with Kathleen Severide firmly ensconced in the psychiatric wing of UIC and Benny Severide remaining doggedly MIA, Kelly had become a ward of the state. Wallace also knew that Kelly's injuries had come from the very people who were supposed to be safe-guarding his well-being in his hour of need, and if the boy's earlier comments were to be taken into account, one of them was likely an ex-cop.

With evidence of a beating so obvious across a minor's body, it was clear that Child Services would be called, and, more than likely, the police. Boden knew that the police, like the fire brigade, tended to stick together and that could mean problems for Kelly down the line, especially if his carer was believed and the teenager was shipped right back to the clearly violent man's arms.

He had been in the waiting room for who knew how long, taking turns pacing and looking resentfully towards the forms and anxiously towards the doors that separated him from Kelly. He'd even tried getting a hold of Benny a few times, only to find the increasingly frustrating man still unreachable. He didn't know if the man was genuinely out of reach or if he was aware of what was going on and simply avoiding it all – if it was the latter then Boden was going to forget their shared brotherhood from years on the job together and kick his arse!

Boden had just thrown the half-filled forms aside once again and got up to pace when the waiting room door was opened. He hesitantly turned, dreading the potential news from the doctor, only to find himself face-to-face with a stranger…a stranger with a police shield attached to his belt.

"Who are you?" Boden asked, knowing all too well that his tone was brimming with suspicion.

"I'm Detective Torretti," the man replied, offering a hand that Boden eventually shook despite looking askance at the man. "I'm here because I asked to be kept informed about Kelly Severide."

"Why?" Boden demanded, his suspicion only deepening.

Vince shook his head ruefully. He was pretty sure he knew why _that_ look was being directed his way, suspected that Kelly had plenty of reasons to be wary of cops right about now and, evidently, he had shared some of those reasons with the man standing before him, a man Kelly clearly trusted. Kelly had been hurt, that was true enough, but there was a whole queue of people looking to protect him, probably more than the boy was even aware of, and Vince drew a lot of comfort in that.

"I got a visit from my next-door neighbour the other day, if you know Kelly then perhaps you know him – Andy Darden?" the surprised look he got in return convinced the Detective that he was right. "Can I ask who you are?"

"Lieutenant Wallace Boden from Firehouse Fifty-One," Wallace replied, a little tension easing as he realised the policeman might well be there to help.

"Well, _that_ is definitely a name I've heard of – I've heard stories about you and that firehouse of yours for years, so it's nice to finally put a face to the name. Thanks for all you've done for Andy, especially after his father died," Vince said sincerely, offering his hand once again only this time out of respect rather than simply by rote.

"He's a good kid," Boden stated, shaking the proffered hand with far less hesitation.

"Yeah, he is," Vince agreed. "So is Kelly, and that's why I'm here. He's got a lot of very worried people back home trying to figure out how the hell they can help him, and that boy is not making things any easier."

"He's a stubborn one," Boden agreed with a sad smile. Kelly rarely seemed to make things any easier on himself, so used to dealing with problems by himself due to a physically absent father and an emotionally absent mother. "What had Andy worried?" he asked, trying to figure out if the kid knew more than they did, given how close the two boys were.

"At first it was just a matter of finding out what group home he'd been sent to," Vince shrugged. "Obviously things got a little more complicated."

"Yeah," Boden murmured sadly.

"They knew that Kelly's mother had been admitted to a psych unit and they knew that he had been hurt, beyond that, the kids didn't really know a great deal. I told them that Kelly was in a group home in Logan's Square and even without their requests I felt compelled to check it out."

"You work in the Crimes Against Children Unit or something?" Boden asked, curious as to why the Detective was so involved with the case.

"No, I work Homicide," Torretti informed the other man. "But I've lived next door to the Darden's for years and while I wouldn't say that I really _know_ Kelly, I know enough – him being out of touch with his friends, Andy especially, was reason enough for me to be concerned."

"Ok," Boden accepted the man's explanation, feeling a lot more at ease with the man who seemed genuinely concerned for Kelly.

"I got to the group home and spoke to one of the carers there, a guy named Jenkins. He instantly set off just about every alarm bell I possess, but without proper cause there wasn't a lot I could do. Obviously, that pissed Andy off some," Vince added with a small, sad smile. "I made some calls, had people looking into the staff at the home, trying to find something that gave me probable cause for entering the property and questioning those inside – it was a simple matter of waiting.

"I made my way out to Logan's Square this morning to see Kelly, only to be told by one of the carers that he had run away – I demanded to be kept in the loop, let the precinct know and then called Andy and his friends, hoping that maybe Kelly had headed for home. They hadn't heard a thing, and I heard nothing whatsoever until I got a call from Kelly's social worker about half an hour ago telling me he had been admitted to hospital, and here I am."

"So no one has the full details of what happened, then?" Boden asked. He had been hoping that someone somewhere knew what had happened, if only to give Kelly's story more credibility. He believed Kelly wholeheartedly, but he also knew that going up against a cop's word was never going to be an easy thing, especially with for kid like Kelly, who came with a troubled past and plenty of emotional baggage despite his young age.

"Not yet," Torretti replied. "But we'll get to the bottom of this, I promise. Can you tell me what happened on your end? How did Kelly wind up here?"

"Some stranger brought him to Fifty-One. He was a mess – bruised and jumpy as hell, which is not at all like the kid. I took him to my office, and he told me about his mom and being put into a group home, and hinted that an ex-cop there was responsible for his bruises. I asked if there was anyone else who could verify that, not because I didn't believe him, mind," Boden stated firmly, looking Torretti directly in the eyes as if daring the man to contradict him.

"I'm sure," Vince nodded, trying to appease the man, all the while thinking back to the case files he had already drawn up about the carers – two of them were former officers, but Vince would lay money down on Anderson being the guilty party, as the guy set more alarms ringing than even Jenkins had managed and he'd never even _met_ the guy. However, he would have to wait for Kelly to wake up for solid confirmation. "Then what happened?"

"Kelly got rather…distressed," Boden said, finally settling on a word he felt was wholly inadequate but unable to come up with a better alternative. "From what little I could gather before his collapse, there was someone else at the group home that was perhaps in danger?"

"As soon as his social worker told me that Kelly had been admitted to the hospital, I got in touch with the relevant departments – the home and its staff are being investigated and the kids are being questioned. It's unlikely that anyone would be so brazen as to hurt the kids now with so many extra bodies in the group home – police and social workers have been in and out of that place all morning." Vince tried to reassure the other man.

"You really think it's going to be that easy?" Wallace asked sceptically, all too aware of the intricacies involved with a case of _'he said/she said'_.

"No, we can only really get the result we want if the kids are prepared to talk, but seeing as how _they're_ the ones that run the risk of ending back with their so-called carers if their story isn't believed I can see why they'd be reticent, and who knows what sort of threats have been levelled their way already." Vince sympathised with the kids – as infuriating as a victim's silence could be, he knew that the system was far from perfect and that those who suffered when it failed tended to be those already vulnerable members of society.

"So at the moment, these carers are walking free?" Boden asked uneasily.

"Innocent until proven guilty, Lieutenant," the Detective reminded him. "Now, I have my suspicions but we don't yet have any proof, not a single shred of evidence, besides the word of a troubled teenaged boy that was clearly unhappy with his situation, that suggests whatever it was that happened to Kelly, happened in that home. If, which I suspect, it did, then I don't imagine for one second that all of the carers there are guilty of misconduct, so we need to be careful that we don't ruin someone's life because of someone else's sins. This isn't a witch hunt, Boden – we only want the guilty parties to pay for their crimes, no one else."

"I'm not suggesting that we go after anyone by association," Boden clarified. "I just wanted to know what it might mean for Kelly."

"And I understand that," Vince replied calmly. "But right now, with Kelly here, I really don't think they pose much of a threat to him."

"Detective Torretti?" came a timid voice from the doorway.

"April?" the policeman was surprised to see the young woman. "What are you doing here?"

"I was at the Darden's when you called – Mrs. Darden is at the nurses' station trying to fill in some of Kelly's missing details and Andy's gone to try and get a hold of Scott, but I know that his mom managed to pick up an extra shift so he's probably looking after his brother and sister," April rattled off nervously.

She knew that she was in full on ramble mode, knew it but couldn't stop it. Normally she was pretty level-headed, cool and calm in her approach to problems, but when she got nervous she tended to babble away about anything and everything that came to mind.

Unlike the three boys she had befriended, her life was, for the most part, relatively normal – she hadn't lost a parent to disease like Andy had, or to drink like Scott had, and unlike Kelly, both her parents had stuck around and managed to keep their sanity intact. Apart from a little teasing at school about her bookish nature and the one round of vicious rumours that Kelly had quickly quashed, her life was pretty much problem free, and so the ongoing drama overflowing from Kelly's situation was more than a little crippling of her usual coping mechanisms.

Kelly had become a true friend over time, and their friendship had grown from simply sitting near each other in class to hanging out after school and so much more. They were complete opposites in so many ways that April often felt as though their friendship shouldn't work.

Outside of school, April came from a loving and stable home in a rather affluent neighbourhood, her parents were both well-educated and active in the community, frequent volunteers at the local shelter and encouraging their daughter to do the same, never pressuring her into unwanted activities but trying to show her the right path, nonetheless. They allowed her to enjoy her youth, doing all they could to shelter her from the harsh realities of the wider world while they did their best to prepare her for it.

Kelly's family life had long since turned into a disaster that was matched only by the decrepit tenement block he lived in. There was no one to encourage him or protect him, as his father's physical absence and his mother's mental absence had forced Kelly to grow up quickly, abandoning his childhood and creating a jaded young man required to give every spare second towards helping his mother keep a roof over their heads and food in the cupboards.

In school, she was the resident goody two-shoes, a dedicated student and favourite of the teachers who always put that little extra effort into her schoolwork and whose trips to the principal's office were never about condemnation but rather praise.

Kelly was a problem student, the despair of teachers as his intelligence was constantly overshadowed by his fights and his truancy, and who pretty much had his own private seat in the principal's office.

When April had first been partnered up with Kelly due to nothing more than the alphabetical proximity of _'Severide'_ and _'Sexton'_ , she had felt despair, sure that her impeccable grades were about to take a nose-dive, dragged down by the broody bad boy next to her. However, it hadn't taken long to realise that although he clearly didn't _like_ school, Kelly was no idiot. His calm attitude in the face of her panic about grades and deadlines helped keep her grounded, his quiet, teasing sense of humour kept her going through the more taxing assignments and his steadfast nature gradually won her over.

In the end, despite their differences and her expectations, they became friends – April never condemned Kelly for his rather laissez-faire attitude towards school, and Kelly never mocked her for her more studious approach. April never rejected Kelly for the consequences of his parent's actions, and Kelly never resented her for her good fortune.

Indeed, there were often times that April found herself gravitating towards Kelly – like any teenaged girl, her hormones were racing and she couldn't deny that she found Kelly attractive. At a party she would find an excuse to stick by him, not just because she frequently felt out of her depth at such events and his presence helped calm her, but because she found herself more interested in him than in any of the many guys who tried to hit on her. She was embarrassed to admit it, but once, during a thunderstorm, she had pretended to be afraid of lightning just so that it gave her an excuse to cuddle up to Kelly - it had grated against her independent streak but the warmth she got when she snuggled up to Kelly and he wrapped a protective arm around her was a source of comfort too great to give up, pride be damned.

She certainly knew that Kelly found her equally attractive – his blunt manner in such areas meant that he had long since told her she was _'smoking hot, even with the whole bookworm thing going on'_ , but he had never tried to hit on her. There was the occasional bout of flirtatious teasing, but it had only ever been mild and Kelly had never pushed the matter and for that April was grateful – she had too few friends to risk screwing up a friendship as valuable as theirs for what was likely a doomed romance.

It was _that_ friendship that currently had her twisting herself up in knots, wracking her brain in an apparently fruitless effort to try and figure out a way to help Kelly.

"…but I can't really tell you more than that, we'll have to wait for the doctors," Vince said and it occurred to April that perhaps she should have been paying better attention, lost as she was in her thoughts she had missed whatever it was that the Detective had been trying to tell her.

"We're still waiting for the doctors to come and give us an update," Boden summarised once he looked at the young girl and caught the slightly bewildered look on her face. He'd never met April, but he'd heard Andy tease Kelly about her more than enough times – he'd also heard Kelly refute any and all claims that there was anything more than friendship between the two. It was a shame – from everything he had heard, the girl could be good for Kelly.

Boden's thoughts were interrupted by Elizabeth Darden coming through the door, a ream of paper in her hands as she sat down on one of the large padded chairs with a heavy sigh. She looked as though she had been crying, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, and her hair looked as though she had run her hands through it several times over in her distress.

"I don't know half of the things these forms want to know," she said, her voice a little hoarse. "I know his name, I know his birthday and I know his address, but that's about it. I don't even know if his parents have any insurance sorted out for him."

"If not, we'll make sure there are no problems there," Boden promised solemnly. People at Fifty-One cared about Kelly, and not just because he was Benny Severide's kid – a whip round would raise some immediate funds and any extra that was needed Wallace fully intended to beat out of the boy's father.

"I asked for an update but because I'm not family all they would tell me was that he was in surgery," Mrs Darden shook her head sadly. The guilt she felt was crippling. If only she had listened to her son then all of this might have been avoided, and she knew that Andy felt the same way – knew for certain because Andy had been quite vociferous on the matter.

However, even as much as her heart had desired another outcome, she knew that her options with regards to Kelly were limited. Money had been a constant struggle since she lost her husband – with nothing to her name but a high school diploma, she was limited in the work she could get and minimum wage didn't get you very far with two kids and a mortgage. She worked her arse off all week and even then she still sometimes had to resort to borrowing money off her sister just to make ends meet. Adding the burden of another mouth to feed, even if it was a boy she had come to greatly care about, was just not feasible.

"I still can't get through to Scott," Andy said quietly as he entered the waiting room. He sat down on the opposite side of the room to his mother, regretful about the hateful things he had said to her earlier but still too furious at the whole situation to forgive her for not helping his friend.

"Kelly's going to be ok," April stated, her voice shaking slightly as her conviction in the validity of that statement wavered.

"Even if he is going to be ok after _this_ , they're just going to ship him off to another group home once he gets out," Andy muttered sourly. "You saw him at school, he was already a mess after _one week_ – what do you think he's going to be like after a couple of years of that?"

"He won't be there that long," April shook her head in denial.

"How the hell do you know that? Do you really think that the authorities are just going to hand him back to his mom after everything she did? She attacked her own son! She's in the nut house! No way will even the softest bleeding heart in DCFS want to see _that_ particular family reunion happen!" Andy shouted, his ire rising with each statement.

"Andy…" Boden tried to interject.

"And where the hell is Benny Severide, huh?" Andy demanded. "Why the hell haven't you dragged his sorry ass down here? Oh, I forgot, you guys are just like the cops, always looking after your own – what the hell do _you_ care about what happens to Kelly!"

"Hey! That's enough!" Boden shouted firmly. "I am here because Kelly came to me for help – _Kelly_ came to _me_! I'm helping him, not because I give a damn about _Benny_ Severide, but because I care about that kid. He came to me, told me what was going on and then he collapsed in my arms and I have been pacing this damn room for God knows how long desperate to hear just _one_ bit of good news from a doctor, a nurse, even a damn orderly – _someone_ to tell me that he is going to be ok. Now I know that you're upset but you're not the only one, and you have absolutely _no_ right to tell me that I don't care about that kid!"

Silence followed as everyone digested that little outburst. Andy had never seen Boden furious before, had never seen the man so much as raise his voice – Andy hated it when Boden was angry with you or upset and his voice got all quiet and low as he told you how you'd disappointed both him _and_ yourself, and it could be just as infuriating when you were spitting mad only to have a calm Boden talk you through it with an even tone and some sickeningly reasonable words when you just wanted someone to agree with you in your moment of intense irrationality. To say that the outburst was out of character for the man was a gross understatement.

He regretted the words almost as soon as they left his mouth, just as he had with his mother, but the anger inside him was bubbling up so much that it needed an outlet. He couldn't seem to calm himself down and every time he tried, the next bit of drama seemed to come along and blow up in all their faces.

Mrs Darden was not shocked at her son's outburst, having experienced that for herself several times over the past few days, however, she _was_ surprised at Boden. It wasn't that she felt the man was unjustified in his wrath or that she held his outburst against him – the words were not harsh and unforgiving, they did not tear Andy down in any way other than to highlight the fact that he wasn't the only one suffering and Boden's words were true and sincere and full of the same sense of helplessness they had all been feeling. However, while the words were not out of character, the outburst was and it only raised the anxiety she was feeling about Kelly's situation. What had Boden seen that had him so on edge?

April cowered slightly in her seat, feeling as though her miserable attempt to be optimistic had caused the whole debacle in the first place. She, like Andy, was angry at the whole situation – she only knew this Boden guy from a few things Kelly had said and she didn't know the Detective all that well, either, but she was quite sure they weren't to blame for anything that had happened. She was also quite sure that Andy wasn't yet ready to hear that and wished she could find the necessary words to get through to him, knowing in her heart that the only one likely to succeed such a feat was lying on an operating table.

"I think everyone needs to take a deep breath," Detective Torretti suggested. He only knew Kelly in passing and so was not as emotionally invested as the other occupants in the room, not to mention his job as a cop required a little compartmentalisation from time to time. "Now, everyone is worried, everyone is feeling more than a little helpless and everyone is just trying to figure out a way to help Kelly. But this," he gestured wildly to everyone in the room. "This is not going to help him _or_ yourselves."

"What can we do?" April asked quietly, desperately.

"Not a lot," the Detective replied honestly. "We have no control over what's happening in that operating theatre, we have no control over his mother's mental well-being or over what his father's doing, or rather, _not_ doing, we have no control over where DCFS will place him next time and we have no control over how Kelly is going to handle all of this. What we _do_ have control over is what _we_ can do to help _Kelly_.

"Andy, April, the best thing you can do for your friend right now is be there for him – it's a crappy answer to a crappy situation but it will help him more than you know, trust me on that. You can't fix this situation for him, you know that and he knows that and that's probably why he didn't come to you with any of this earlier, but you're his friends – he trusts you and he needs you. Christ, he left Logan Square in the middle of the night and he crossed the city on foot to get back to _you_.

"Elizabeth, Kelly is not going to hold any of this against you. His own mother? Probably. Benny? Hell yeah! I imagine that boy has some serious anger issues regarding his father right now. But from everything I know of the boy personally, from everything you've all said, you're the last person he'll blame - he's made your home his sanctuary of sorts for years, and the fact that he keeps coming back should tell you how much he values you and all you do for him.

"Lieutenant Boden, Kelly came to you because he trusts you and you have done nothing to show him that his trust was misplaced in you. You'll probably have more luck getting him to open up about what happened in that group home than I will, than some stranger with a badge _ever_ will.

"Now, we will wait here until a doctor or nurse comes and tells us what is going on with that boy, we will keep civilised tongues," Vince said, looking pointedly at Andy. "We will keep a lid on our anger and anxiety," he pinned both Boden and Mrs Darden with a piercing gaze. "We will remain calm and optimistic," he said offering April a soft, encouraging smile. "Kelly's going to need us when he wakes up so we need to try and stop tearing each other to shreds."

"You're right," Boden nodded firmly. "I apologise for allowing my anger cloud the real issue at hand."

"Me too," Andy offered quietly. "I just get so worked up every time I even _think_ about Sev being sent off to some strange group home the other side of Chicago, where things could be just as bad, if not worse than the last place DCFS stuck him in!"

Elizabeth Darden walked over to sit by Andy, taking her unresponsive son into her arms as he silently tried to hold back the tears. Just as she was about to try and offer what words of comfort she could find, the door to the small waiting room opened once again and a doctor walked in, momentarily taken aback as everyone lurched to their feet at the sight of her.

"Hi, I'm Doctor Evershed," she introduced herself. "I'm the surgeon who operated on Kelly Severide. I understand that none of you are family?"

"I'm Detective Torretti. His mother is currently in the psychiatric wing at UIC and we haven't managed to get hold of his father yet," the Detective informed her. "His case is a little…complicated."

"Yes, the police presence outside his hospital door told me this was a complicated matter," she stated, the questioning tone more than evident in her tone of voice.

"He's a potential witness," Torretti supplied. "The uniform is probably unnecessary, but we didn't want to risk leaving Kelly vulnerable to anyone looking to keep him quiet."

"I see," Evershed replied, although the frown indicated that she didn't wholly understand what was going on.

"Everyone in this room is here for Kelly, so anything you can tell us about his situation would be gratefully received."

"Ok, where to start," the Doctor said more to herself than to the expectant people in the waiting room. "He has a minor bump on the head – he'll likely have a small headache for a few days but there's no evidence of anything more serious going on. He'll be taken back for a couple more scans during his stay here, just to make sure, check for slow bleeds and the like, but I really don't foresee there being any long-term issues there.

"He has a couple of broken ribs and a few are cracked – luckily they don't seem to have caused any internal damage, but there is very little we can do for him with those injuries other than provide him with something to fight the pain. He'll need to take it easy for four to six weeks, allow his ribs to heal, and we'll need to keep an eye out for any respiratory problems – with these types of injuries there is an increase in risk of chest infections as it can become much harder to clear secretions with the pain ever present.

"The most troubling injury, the one that required surgery, was the damage to his liver. Thankfully the damage wasn't as extensive as we'd first feared and it was only a relatively small rupture – we'll need to keep an eye on it and make sure we managed to repair all the damage as well as keep an eye on his blood-work to make sure nothing nasty got into his system, but his stats are looking good so far, so I'm feeling pretty optimistic. The liver is also one of our more durable organs and with a little time and care it will be as good as new, so no long term problems there either.

"As for the rest, there's really nothing to worry about. There appears to be a little damage to the muscles in one of his shoulders and as soon as he is able to move about the arm will be put into a sling to try and reduce the movement, giving the joint time to heal properly. The rest of the injuries are very minor, a few cuts and bruises that will heal up in a matter of days.

"He's breathing on his own and now that the internal bleeding has been sorted out his vitals are rapidly improving. He's on some morphine for the pain, some antibiotics to ward off any infections, some anti-inflammatories to help reduce the swelling and some sedatives to see him through the worst of it all – he's not going to be awake for at least twelve hours, and when he _does_ wake up he will be very groggy and disorientated. You should go home and get some rest, because Kelly's got a long, hard road ahead of him and he's likely going to need his friends."

"Can we see him first?" Andy all but begged.

"They're just getting him settled in post-op. As soon as it's possible we'll take you through to see him for a _very_ brief visit," the Doctor said firmly. "Only two at a time."

"Thank you, ma'am," Boden offered sincerely. It was a lot to take in, but from everything the doctor said, Kelly would be fine in time.

* * *

Andy and April entered the room together, each unsure of what to expect, neither one in any kind of condition to have absorbed all that the nurse had tried to explain to them about the machines hooked up to their friend.

It was hard to believe the small figure on the bed was their friend – they were both so used to Kelly's seemingly invincible façade that the fragile body lying deathly still seemed utterly foreign. The white hospital blanket covered him up to his waist, exposing the bandages over his lower torso and highlighting the mass of bruises against his pale skin. They could also see just how much strain the past few weeks had placed on their friend, as his weight-loss was apparent in the way they could count his ribs all too easily, even through the mottled skin.

Kelly was thankfully free of any machines that would be needed if he required any help to breath, but with his face fully exposed, neither teenager could ignore the frown that marred his face even in unconsciousness. They hesitantly approached the bed, afraid to disturb him even though they knew the drugs would keep him under, the irrationality of it all seemed natural given the way that events had spiralled so far out of control.

April gently placed her hand on one of Kelly's, a little alarmed at how cold his fingers felt. His fingers didn't clasp her own as they usually did when she went seeking comfort from him, and the lack of response hit her almost as hard as his battered body.

"We have to do something…" Andy muttered to himself. "There has to be something that we can…"

"Your neighbour's right," April interrupted dejectedly. "There's nothing we can do but wait for him to wake up and be there for him when he does."

"If he gets put into another group home half way across the city, then how the hell are we supposed to be there for him?" Andy demanded, keeping his voice to a furious whisper. "He needs us! We can't help him if he's locked away in some group home trying to avoid rocking the boat so much that he has to take a punch from some asshole carer or risk staying in the system until he's eighteen. God, we _really_ need to get him away from those idiots at DCFS who put him here in the first place! I've tried to talk my mom round but, as much as I hate to admit it, I know that she's right - I just don't know how else we can help him…I don't know what to _do_."

April stared at the unconscious form of their battered friend, wondered if Kelly could hear them, knew that they were desperately trying to help him. He would have a plan, it would likely involve punching someone or at least threatening them, but threats from a high school kid only really held water in high school. The situation they faced required an adult's touch, but Kelly's parents were either unable or unwilling to step up, so they'd have to find someone else.

"Come on, we should let your mom and Boden have a turn before the nurses throw us out," April told Andy who was standing almost as far away from Kelly as he could, anxiously focusing on the rise and fall of his chest as if worried that the movement would cease were he not watching carefully enough. She leaned over and kissed Sev on the forehead and squeezed his hand one last time before heading out. "I'm going to go and call my parents."

"Yeah, they're probably worried about you," Andy said, still staring unblinkingly at his friend's breathing. "You should probably let them know what's going on if you're planning on sticking around the next few days."

"I fully intend to," April muttered quietly to herself as she took one last look at her injured friend before leaving the oppressive atmosphere of the hospital room. It was clear that Mrs Severide was in absolutely no position to help and apparently Mr Severide was completely unwilling to even try, and while Mrs Darden wanted to help she was unable to do so, but April knew that there were good people out there, and she planned on going and begging for the help of two of the people she trusted most in the world. For the first time that she could remember in their friendship, Kelly needed _her_ help, he _really_ needed her, and she was going to be damned if she let him down after everything he had done for her.

* * *

 _ **Let me know what you think and if you spot any errors. Ta!**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Thanks for the reviews/messages. Sorry it has taken me so long to update. My grandmother died and then a couple of weeks later my father did too, so all in all life has been pretty shitty lately and I haven't really felt much like writing or doing much of anything to be honest, so thank you for your patience.**_

* * *

He couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was that pulled him from sleep, but as he tried to rub his aching eyes he felt a tug on the skin on the back of his hand and at the crook of his elbow, there was a pinching sensation around one of his fingers that he couldn't place, and there was a heaviness to his limbs that he couldn't explain.

He opened his eyes before immediately closing them with a quiet groan once the too-bright light hit his retinas. Much more slowly, he cracked open his eyes and gave them a chance to adjust to the brightness of the lights bouncing off the stark white walls. Eventually, he opened his eyes a little wider and tried to take stock of his situation.

The first thing he noticed was that he was surely in a hospital. The mixture of chemical smells, the beeping sounds and low murmuring, the stiff, railed bed and the scratchy gown were clues enough. The pulse ox clipped onto his finger was an odd sensation, needling him a little but not ostensibly painful. It was a similar thing with the catheter and the IV attached to his arm, uncomfortable where the tape keeping them in place pulled against his skin but not overtly sore.

He tried to push himself up a little to try and get a better sense about the rest of him, but the pain that shot through his entire body stopped him dead. His head pounded with the slightest movement and muscles all along his body that hadn't moved for far too long ached as pins and needles spread throughout his limbs, however, that was swiftly overwhelmed by the pain that seemed to centre on his torso, alternating with vicious speed between his abdomen and his chest.

"Easy, Kelly," came a familiar voice from the side. Kelly turned his head towards the sound, clenched his hand around that of whoever had just grasped his palm, but with his eyes screwed shut in pain he hadn't yet been able to place it. "Just breathe in slowly," the voice soothed him. It was low and strong and Kelly knew that he recognised it but the agony seemed to have robbed him of the face that went along with it. "And out," the voice coached him, and Kelly found himself relaxing, aware that even though his sluggish brain seemed determined not to help him out with a name it was at least telling him to trust it. "That's it, nice and slow."

"Boden?" Kelly asked once the worst of the pain had abated somewhat, finally cracking open a single eye while doing his best not to move his head, or indeed any other part of his body.

"Hey, kid," the Lieutenant replied with a small, sad smile. _'Kid'_ had always seemed entirely wrong for Kelly as a nickname, given how much had fallen on his small shoulders as a boy and how much of his childhood he had lost because of it, but while Boden had sat by the teenager's bedside praying that he make it through without further complications, Kelly had never seemed smaller or more vulnerable, and _'kid'_ had never seemed more apt.

"What…?" Kelly started, but the dryness of his throat caught up with him and yet another kind of pain reared its ugly head. Luckily, Boden figured out the problem and offered Kelly a couple of ice chips to whet his thirst. Kelly has shown signs of emerging from his sedation for about an hour, and one of the nurses had brought in a small cup of ice chips about ten minutes earlier. It was mostly just a lot of cold water now, but a few bits of ice remained and Kelly gratefully accepted a few before he tried to talk again.

"What happened?" he asked, looking slowly to Boden and taking stock of his appearance. The Lieutenant's thick black moustache was still prominent across his upper lip, but there was a slightly thicker dusting of hair across the rest of his jaw than usual, too, that suggested he hadn't shaved for a couple of days. The bags under his eyes seemed more pronounced, too, and spoke of more than simply a difficult shift. The clothes were casual, not his uniform, but they looked more rumpled than even jeans and a sweater had a right to.

"What happened is that you came to my firehouse and scared ten years off my life," Boden said, only half joking.

Kelly's eyes narrowed in frustration as he tried to fill in the blanks. "The group home…?" he half-asked, half-stated. Boden leaned forward, eager to see just what the kid could recall – hopefully enough to nail Anderson to the wall. "And Cesar…" the stranger who brought Kelly to Fifty-One, Boden remembered. "I…I don't know," Kelly finally said, frustrated with himself and the entire situation, unable to recall what had happened between going to the firehouse and ending up in the hospital.

"Do you remember what happened at the group home?" Boden asked carefully.

Kelly remained quiet for a few minutes and Wallace couldn't quite decide if that was because the boy was struggling to remember or if he simply didn't want to do so.

"I remember," Kelly eventually replied quietly, although by that stage he was no longer looking at the Squad Lieutenant and had curled in on himself, regardless of the pain any movement may have caused him.

"Detective Torretti, Andy Darden's neighbour?" Boden started, waiting to see some sign from the brooding teenager that he recognised the name, unsure of how the boy would react to any cop at the moment. Kelly nodded and finally looked up to meet Boden's gaze, a question in his own eyes. "He's been trying to find out what happened."

"He works homicide," Kelly stated with confusion.

"Apparently, you're friends decided to get him on the case regardless," Wallace said with a smile at the tenacity of the teenager's friends. He had come to know all of them a little better during their stay in the waiting room as they paced and hounded the staff together. Andy, he knew from before, and he had even met Rice at the firehouse a couple of times, but April was a relatively new addition, for all that he had heard plenty about her, and Boden was pleased to see that while Kelly had a lousy support system at home, his friends were fiercely devoted to him.

Boden had listened with a sad little smile as Andy talked about all the ways Kelly had helped him deal with his father's illness and subsequent death, as Scott talked about how Kelly was always there when the violence at home became too much and as April recounted the story of Kelly helping her out with a vicious jock and equally malicious rumours.

The Lieutenant had always known that Kelly was fiercely protective of those he deemed friends, had seen it the very first time he'd shown up at Fifty-One with the Darden boy in tow and sheltered the shy boy from the crasser side of firehouse life with an almost aggressive determination until Andy felt more comfortable in that atmosphere. Sadly, it was also present in the way Kelly defended his mother, even to himself. It was good to see it returned in the love and devotion afforded to him by his friends and the lengths they had gone to in an effort to try and protect him as much as he tried to protect them.

"Anyway, Torretti's on his way," Boden informed Kelly, not wanting to leave the clearly unsettled boy open to surprises of any kind. "He has an update about what's been happening with the group home and we both thought you should hear it. I also called Andy, so I imagine your friends will be descending upon you any moment."

Kelly frowned, not sure how he felt about any of that. Andy's next-door neighbour had always been nice to him, if a little suspicious at first, and he had never treated Kelly unfairly, even during his more troubled days. But still, the man was a cop, and the boys in blue tended to stick together, leaving Kelly shit out of luck if the homicide detective decided to take Anderson's word over his. As to his friends, well…he didn't know _what_ he was going to say to them.

Compared to the boys, he and April had a relatively new friendship and while they got along very well and she would likely be the most effusive with her concern, thankfully she wasn't yet very adept at reading him and he could hide the worst of it from her. He wasn't sure how easy it would be to brush off her concerns and would likely have to suffer through a few lectures on how to better look after himself or calm the fiery passion that blazed on his behalf, but she didn't yet understand him well enough to know where to poke and prod for the dark truths of the whole sorry affair.

Scott would be easy enough to distract – the guy was a born storyteller and liked to talk more than anyone Kelly had ever come across, and getting him to talk was as simple as asking him how he was before a non sequitur led to a long-winded anecdote about a bicycle accident five years earlier, or an incident where a slice of toast ended up stuck on the ceiling, or the mystery of the house duck. Most of the stories Kelly had heard at least once already, but if he simply smiled and nodded in all the right places, then Scott would likely be happy enough not to delve too deep and ask any probing questions.

Andy, however, was a different matter altogether. They had known each other since kindergarten and had long since picked up on each other's cues and tells, and hiding anything from his best friend was going to be hard. Convincing him that nothing was wrong beyond the obvious would be nigh on impossible, and Andy was too tenacious and protective to ever let the new-found damage on his friend's body go unanswered and unexplained.

"I'm going to go and find a doctor, let them know that you're awake," Boden said as he caught sight of the deepening frown on the teenager's face. He stood up and gently lay a hand on Kelly's shoulder, decidedly ignoring the way the child flinched under even the softest of touches. "I'll be back in a minute."

Kelly cursed himself for the instinctual reaction – he trusted Boden, there was a reason he went to Fifty-One, after all, and it was nothing to do with nostalgia about his father's old house. Still, he had a feeling that anyone coming near him right now, when he felt so weak and vulnerable, would get the same reaction out of him, whether it be a towering firefighter or a tiny child.

He closed his eyes tightly and tried to ignore the pain and the fatigue, desperately wishing that everything could go back to two weeks ago, when life, while anything but simple, had at least been bearable.

* * *

When Kelly next felt the unwelcome pain of consciousness, it was to the hushed voices of his friends. He looked at them through half-lidded eyes, watched as they smiled and quietly laughed amongst themselves frequently sending brief looks towards the bed.

He hadn't realised how much he'd missed them until that moment. Logan Square had kept his mind busy and everything had been so up in the air after his mother's breakdown that, except for the occasional bout of self-pity, events had spiralled too quickly for him to really stop and take stock of the situation.

He had missed Andy's constant friendship, full of gentle teasing and fierce over-protectiveness. He had missed April's dogged concern and easy hugs. God, he had _even_ missed Scott and his stories!

Even though he wasn't inclined to tell his friends the truth of all that had happened in the group home, he very much needed them…needed people who would be on his side no matter what happened with the cops and Anderson…needed people who would fiercely defend him without hesitation and without a moment of doubt creeping into their minds.

"Hey," he offered quietly, his voice still croaky from his parched throat.

That quiet greeting, however, was the best thing Andy, April and Scott had heard all day and their heads whipped round as one to see their battered friend staring at them through half-opened eyes, a small smile playing on his lips even as the pain was evident in the rest of his expression.

"Kelly," April breathed out happily before quickly making her way over to her friend and gently hugging him, taking care to avoid holding him too tight or brushing against his injured ribs too heavily. She knew that she probably should have avoided touching him at all until it could be done without causing him any pain, but April was equally sure that her friend needed a kind touch, a gesture to remind him that not everyone was out to hurt him.

"Finally!" Scott enthused. "I didn't know you could be so lazy, man. Lying around in bed, sleeping through the day," he smiled, relief pouring through him and finally relaxing, his shoulders aching from where the tension had been pulling on the muscles. He grasped Kelly's hand, the one without the catheter, and gave it one firm squeeze to reassure them both that it was really happening.

"Sev," Andy offered quietly with a small but achingly sincere smile. He hadn't felt so on edge since his father's last few days but finally there was some relief from the heavy emotions that had weighed brutally on them all since Kelly had first appeared in school, angry and bruised, only days ago despite feeling like the drama had been dragged out over a much longer time frame.

Andy and April had stopped by to visit Kelly once he'd been settled before being turned back out by the nurses. Seeing their friend so vulnerable in the hospital bed had hit them both very hard and Andy had struggled to fight back the tears as anger, helplessness and, of course, worry ate away at him.

April had gone home after that to check in with her parents, but Andy had known that she would return as soon as she could, even if that meant whiling away the hours in the small and uncomfortable waiting room.

Andy had, for his part, decided to stay regardless. The anger he felt at his mother had abated somewhat now that he knew his friend was going to be ok, but he was still too absorbed in his own feelings of despair at the entire situation to feel comfortable enough to leave his friend. His mother had had to go and ready herself for work, but she had left Andy with a fierce hug and words of forgiveness that he wasn't entirely sure he deserved but had certainly needed to hear nonetheless.

Vince had quickly disappeared, determined to get more answers about what had happened at the group home with a promise to keep them all informed, and Andy had been left alone with Boden.

He regretted his outburst at the Squad Lieutenant almost as much as the ones he had directed towards his mother, but he hadn't yet gathered up enough courage to talk to the man. From his own experience, Boden had never been anything but nice – firm, certainly, but always fair and always patient. During the darker days of his father's illness, when his anger at the whole situation was all encompassing, Boden had been there, ready and able to distract him as best as he could and talk of a future that lay beyond it all, offering hope at the end of a very dark tunnel.

With Kelly, it had always been something more. He knew how much Sev respected the fireman, knew that Boden had frequently treated his friend with more love and affection than Benny had ever seemed capable of doing, even when the man was still married to Kelly's mother the relationship had always been tense. When everything started to go wrong with Kelly's home life as his father left physically and his mother checked out emotionally, it had been Boden who seemed to ground Kelly.

Boden was one of the few adults in Kelly's life who had not disappointed him – the fireman spent a great deal of time encouraging Kelly to achieve his goals, commiserating with him when times got tough, and berating him when he acted out. Because of that, Andy knew that _Boden_ was the fireman Kelly aspired to be, the _man_ he strived to emulate, _not_ his father.

There had been an awkward silence between them in the waiting room as they both waited for further news, or better yet, permission to sit with Kelly. Eventually it was broken by the arrival of Scott, who rushed in frantic and desperate to find out what had happened. He'd been forced to wait at home until his mother returned from shift to look after his younger siblings, and the wait had only filled him with anxiety.

Boden, who had met Scott on one of the few occasions he had accompanied Kelly and Andy to the firehouse, had stepped in and calmed the teen down, explaining all that they knew and what they were expecting to happen once Kelly was transferred from post-op to the ICU. Whether it was relief they all felt to acknowledge out loud that Kelly was really going to be ok, or whether it was simply a matter of Scott's naturally verbose personality, Andy couldn't say, but it seemed to open the floodgates and a steady stream of conversation grew between them and all the stories revolved around Kelly one way or another.

Eventually, once Kelly had been moved from post-op and into a single room in the ICU, a policeman still standing guard outside, they had been told they could sit with him. The steady beep of the heart monitor had been equally annoying and reassuring, and they continued to talk about their friend, careful to talk in hushed tones to avoid disturbing him, even though the drugs would undoubtedly have kept him under through a riot.

Eventually night came and their parents had all insisted that they go home, to shower, eat and rest up before returning to the hospital the next day. Only Boden's quiet but firm reassurance that he would remain and that Kelly would need them all on the top of their game had succeeded in getting them to leave.

The call from Boden that Kelly was finally showing signs of waking had come at breakfast, and they had all rushed to the hospital, bellies only half full but full of relief and eager to see their friend only to find he had fallen asleep. Resolute in staying until the next time he awoke, they settled down, their chatter more animated and much lighter in content than it had been last time.

"Hey," Kelly said again, focusing on the silent form of his best friend.

"You scared the hell out of us, man," Andy said, gently resting a hand on his friend's shoulder, frowning at the way Kelly's entire body stiffened at the gesture, but unable to ask about Sev's reaction as Boden and Torretti entered the small, crowded room.

"Well, well, look who's finally decided to wake up," the Detective said with a smile on his face. "Boden said you were beginning to stir so I thought I'd stop by, let you know what's going on. Someone from the right department will be by for your statement once you're ready to give it, but I thought you'd want to be kept in the loop. You ok with this lot being here or would you rather I speak to you alone?"

"Hey…" Scott started indignantly before a swift elbow from April quietened him down.

Kelly took a moment to examine the cop before him, trying to gauge just what is was exactly that he knew. He hadn't told anyone exactly what had happened except for Cesar and the man, despite his kindness, was a stranger who'd stopped being involved in the intricacies of the drama once he'd dropped Kelly off at Fifty-One. He certainly couldn't see Anderson or Jenkins confessing to anything. Deciding that the physical abuse he had endured at the group home was plain to see, he warily nodded his head towards Torretti, figuring his friends were only likely to pester him for the details later anyway.

"We've got people looking into the group home," Torretti started without preamble. "One of the other boys there, Manuel, showed clear signs of abuse," he watched with interest as Kelly flinched at that. No one else had seen it, as they were too busy looking at him waiting for an explanation, but Vince was sure that Kelly knew more about Manuel's mistreatment than they had managed to drag from the near-mute of an eleven year old. "He's not saying who's responsible, so we're interviewing all of the carers.

"The two carers that were on when you ran off, Anderson and Jenkins," the policeman continued, taking note of the way the teen's eyes narrowed and hands clenched into fists at the mere mention of the carers. "They're obviously top of the list, but so far they've denied any wrong-doing. However, they've been suspended while the investigation is ongoing – if nothing else, they failed to look after _you_ properly given that you left the building in the middle of the night.

"Social services are keeping a close eye on the other kids but none of them are too keen on telling us much of anything, and without someone coming forward and reporting them, there's not a lot we can do," Vince said, eager to make Kelly understand that he might be the only one able to bring a stop to the abuse in the home. It was a heavy burden for a sixteen year old, but it was already on his shoulders and it was likely that the only way a positive outcome could be reached was if he stepped up and told a truth that Manuel was unable to and the other boys were unwilling to.

"Now, someone will be by, maybe tomorrow but probably later today, given that the nature of this case has everyone wanting to get it sorted asap, so they will take your statement. It's important that you are as honest as you can be in this, Kelly – any omissions now might make rectifying this whole mess a damn sight more difficult further down the line and I really don't want to see you get sent back to a dangerous environment just because you weren't sure who to trust. Trust me, if no one else, kid, ok?"

Kelly nodded, staring sightlessly into the distance, as he tried to decide on what he would tell the police when they came knocking.

"Alright, kid," Vince said with a soft sigh at Kelly's lack of a response, looking towards Boden and noting an equally concerned look in his eyes. "I've got to get back to work, but if you need anything, ring me," he offered the troubled teen a card with his contact details on them. "Anytime for anything."

"Thanks," Kelly offered quietly, still avoiding the policeman's eyes.

Once he was done, Vince gestured subtly to Boden to meet him outside Kelly's room. He was not looking forward to this conversation, but it needed to be said. Kelly clearly trusted Boden, and if anyone was likely to get through to the kid it was the fireman.

"I didn't want to say anything in front of the others," Torretti started quietly, anger and sadness warring in his expression as he moved away from the room keen to make sure he wasn't overheard. "But there is evidence that the little boy from Kelly's group home was abused…sexually as well as physically."

Boden cursed quietly, quickly turning around to hide his expression as he clenched and unclenched his fists in a desperate effort to gain control over his turbulent emotions. It must have been the thought of an eleven year old Manuel that had elicited the near-panic attack in Kelly right before he collapsed. "And Kelly?" he eventually asked, not sure if he really wanted to hear the answer.

"As soon as I found out I talked to his doctor – when they admitted him, once they'd uncovered obvious signs of physical abuse on Kelly, they did a brief examination just to be safe but thankfully they could find no obvious signs of sexual abuse. They agreed that there was plenty of evidence of physical abuse, but he seemingly escaped much worse," Torretti concluded, all too aware of how bad the abuse could have been having read the reports on little Manuel.

"Thank god!" Boden breathed out with a quiet sigh of relief before Torretti's sobering remark brought him back to reality with a bump.

"Just because there's no evidence of molestation it doesn't mean that it didn't happen, and even if Anderson or Jenkins or whoever _didn't_ succeed, that doesn't mean they didn't _try_ ," the Detective warned the Squad Lieutenant. "I'm pretty sure he's not going to open up to the cops any time soon – although Ramirez, the cop who'll take his statement, can be a little more frank in his questioning if Kelly's alone, I'm not sure how ready Kelly will be to trust him or anyone else in blue, for that matter. But he trusts _you_ , Boden, and he's going to need help with this – no matter how much crap he's gone through before, _this_ is something entirely different."

Boden nodded, his throat going dry, the burden already sitting heavily upon his shoulders. He had a great deal of affection for the boy but Kelly was not his son, and Bennie, even if he _had_ still been in the picture as a father should be, was perhaps an even worse possibility to try and handle the situation.

Ever since Henry Mills and Ross McGowan had died in that fire, things had been more than a little tense between him and Benny. But in all honesty, their friendship had started to sour even before then – the fact that Kelly chose to follow _Boden_ around Fifty-One rather than his father had not gone down too well, despite the fact that it only happened in the first place because Benny had never paid any attention to his son when he came visiting the firehouse. As they spent more time together, Boden had, naturally, come to care for the boy and had felt his ire towards Benny grow every time Wallace was forced to see the detrimental effects of his parenting or lack thereof.

But at the end of the day, no matter how many times he had talked Kelly through some of the more difficult times in his life, despite all he had done to distract him and teach him and inspire him, Boden was not the boy's father and he wasn't sure how much weight his words would hold when Kelly was clearly not interested in sharing what had happened. How could Boden possibly hope to fulfil the role that Kelly would so obviously need after all of this?

He wasn't sure he _wanted_ to know any potentially sordid details of Kelly's time in the group home, and he certainly didn't know how on earth he could encourage the boy to share those details with the police _without_ losing Kelly for good at the end of the day.

He shook Torretti's hand, thanking him for the information and headed back to Kelly's room as he desperately sought to uncover an answer on how to broach the topic with the troubled teen. Just as he was about to enter, however, Andy, April and Scott all came out.

"Apparently they're going to take him for some more tests," Andy explained. "I think they're worried about the bump on the head because Kelly's being so quiet," he offered with a frown.

"He always tends to get pretty quiet when things are shitty," Scott offered.

Boden was saddened to see the other two nod their heads in agreement – this was not the sort of tell that belonged to a sixteen year old boy.

"Anyway, the nurse said that they probably wouldn't be done by the time morning visiting hours are done so we're all going to head back and get some more rest," Andy informed the Squad Lieutenant. "None of us really slept that well last night."

"Understandably so," Boden agreed, as he hadn't slept all that well either. Thankfully he knew some of the members of staff reasonably well and, given the situation, they had pulled some strings and allowed him to camp overnight in the ICU – however, the chair by Kelly's bedside, even though it was padded, was a far cry from a bed of his own, and his worry and discomfort had kept him from falling asleep much, and he had awoken stiff and sore and in desperate need of a shower. A fellow member of Squad had brought him a change of clothes early in the morning, but that was the only concession he had allowed himself so far.

"You're going to be here still, right?" April asked.

"Yes," Boden confirmed with a smile. No matter how much he wanted to crawl into his own bed, he didn't want to leave Kelly by himself.

"I…er…" April started before abruptly closing her mouth, clearly unsure of how to end.

"Yes?" the fireman prodded gently.

"I talked to my parents last night and I asked them if Kelly could come and stay with us until his mom got out of the hospital," April confessed. "They're looking into it, seeing if they can actually do that, so nothing is set in stone yet. The thing is, I don't know what to tell Kelly. I'm sure he's worried about where he's going to go next, but I don't want to get his hopes up about going somewhere safe, either, if it all turns out to be impossible. Of course, he may not even _want_ to stay with me…" she finished chewing nervously on her lip.

"It's a very nice idea, April, and I'm sure he would be more than happy with it," Boden reassured her. "Do you know how long it will be until your parents get a solid answer on whether or not they'll be able to take him in?"

"They hope to get somewhere by the end of the day, but DCFS are not exactly being…forthcoming," she huffed, sure that it was a politer way of saying they were dragging their arses.

"I'll make some calls of my own," Wallace stated. "But I would hold off on telling him anything today unless it's been confirmed by evening visiting hours. He's got to be feeling pretty rough as it is, and I'm not entirely sure how much he's taking in right now between his injuries, his exhaustion and all those drugs. With the police coming to interview him after everything else that's happened I'm pretty sure he'll need a moment to gather his thoughts."

"Ok," April agreed quietly before leaning in to hug the older man. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "Kelly needs at least one adult in his life that gives a damn about him."

"From what I've seen he has more than one," Boden offered with a wry grin as he thought of himself, Vince Torretti and Elizabeth Darden pacing the waiting room in step, as he thought of Cesar and the promise of violence if Boden didn't look after the boy correctly, as he thought of all the members of Fifty-One who had already filled a boot to help out and had seen several of the men and women of the firehouse stop by and ask after the boy, only halted from actually seeing Kelly by the ICU's strict visiting hours and the guard at the door.

"But you're the one he trusts most," April replied, as if that statement should be obvious and perhaps, Boden thought as he looked through the window at Kelly sleeping through the nurses preparing him for the tests, there was some truth to that given that out of all the places Kelly could have gone to in Chicago, he had chosen Fifty-One and its Squad Lieutenant.

* * *

"You'll be pleased to know that your head is apparently still relatively intact," came an amused voice from Kelly's right. He let out another groan as he opened his eyes and turned towards Boden who was smiling despite the clear exhaustion on his face.

"I slept through it all?" Kelly asked with disbelief. He'd been hypervigilant since that first night in Logan Square and sleep had been hard won since. The nurses had told him about several tests that needed doing and Kelly, who'd already been feeling beyond tired, had felt exhausted just thinking about it all.

"They've got you on a fair few drugs, Kelly," Boden informed the teenager. "I reckon you could probably sleep through the apocalypse with everything you've got running through your system."

"Is that why everything feels so fuzzy?" Severide wondered aloud.

"I'm guessing it's certainly a contributing factor," the Lieutenant laughed. Already Kelly seemed to be more responsive, more aware, and the relief he felt from that was overwhelming.

They continued on with a little small talk for several minutes, with Kelly becoming increasingly alert – they avoided the elephant in the room and kept the conversation light with Boden doing more of the talking than his teenaged counterpart, but Kelly was aware enough to absorb and respond to whatever the fireman was telling him.

They were eventually interrupted by a knock on the door and a short Hispanic man entered the room. He had a round face and thinning hair and the bags under his eyes spoke of more than one sleepless night, but his expression was open and honest, a small smile softened his features.

"Hey," he greeted them quietly but jovially. "I'm Detective Ramirez. I understand Vince told you I was coming?"

Kelly frowned, trying to think through the opiate-induced haze that seemed to have turned his brain to little more than a ball of cotton wool.

"He did," Boden responded. He had stood up and automatically placed himself between Kelly and the stranger, moving aside slightly once he knew the man's identity but still not trusting him until he had proven himself. He turned to Kelly, "Do you want me to leave while you talk to the Detective?"

Kelly looked at Boden, took in the expression of concern etched deeply onto his face, the haggard appearance, the red-rimmed eyes – Boden had clearly opted to step in and look out for him, a role he had frequently taken on over the years and one that had long since earned Kelly's trust and respect, as it was certainly more than Benny had ever done for him.

He knew that the interview with Ramirez would be uncomfortable, knew that he was going to have to talk about a lot of things that he really didn't want to, but he also knew that he _had_ to if he was going to help remove not only himself from Anderson's sadistic and perverted grip, but Manuel, too, as well as any other vulnerable children that would pass through the group home in the future.

Kelly knew that Boden wouldn't think any less of him, knew that the Lieutenant would be nothing but supportive and would more than likely get severely pissed off on Kelly's behalf. The teenager might be having doubts about how much he could trust the police at the moment, but he had no doubts surrounding Boden. At the same time, he didn't want to jeopardise the fireman in any way.

"Do _you_ want to stay?" Kelly asked. "It won't…I don't know…come back on you, somehow?"

"The only way the asshole who did this to you is going to get away with what he's done is if you keep your mouth shut," Boden replied, touched over Kelly's concern for him and saddened that even now Kelly struggled to be the kid, playing the part of _'concerned adult'_ that he had been pushed into much too young. "And I think we both know you're not likely to do that."

"I obviously don't have all of the details yet," Ramirez interjected. "While I can't deny that cops have a reputation for sticking together, that's not strictly the case when one of them turns out dirty. Cops don't like child abusers any more than cons, and that is a pretty strict, pretty universal code with the boys in blue."

"I'm here if you need me, Kelly," Boden offered sincerely. He dreaded some of the things he might hear, but he was determined to keep it together for Kelly's sake.

"Ok," Kelly nodded. "I want you to stay."

"Then I'll stay," Boden stated firmly as he sat back down beside Kelly's bedside with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"I don't really know where to start," Kelly confessed to Ramirez, who had pulled up a chair of his own and pulled out a notepad.

"Tell me what happened once your mother was admitted," Ramirez suggested. "And we'll see how we go from there."

"Ok, well, I guess after that, my social worker found me a place in Logan's Square…"

* * *

 _ **Please let me know what you think and if you spot any mistakes. Ta!**_


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